The Marauders, Episode IV: Weapon X
by Ryden and Xephfyre
Summary: Logan John Shepard is a mystery to all, even to himself, and in a quest to aid his guild member James in recovering the soul of their comrade, he travels to Omega Sector also in search of more clues to his past... but more awaits him there than expected.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own MapleStory, or any other references or shoutouts to other series that appear in this story. This is a work of fiction, any resemblance of characters or events to real-life persons or events is purely coincidental.

* * *

A/N: This story is going to take on a very different feel from Ghost Ship, due to the technological setting of Omega Sector – I'm drawing very heavily from my pool of knowledge of various sci-fi universes here to give the largely undefined structure of Omega Sector's human army some definite form. Kudos to those of you who can pick up on some of the more obscure references scattered here and there, but otherwise, here's the next instalment of the Marauders mini-series.

Just on a side note… Kay IS a woman… right?

* * *

**The Marauders: Episode IV**

**WEAPON X**

* * *

Logan John Shepard was an enigma to all who knew him, even himself.

When he had first joined the Marauders, he had been a recently promoted Dragon Knight, one of the fastest ever to attain the Third Job promotion. Most people attained their First, Second, and finally their Third Job promotions over the course of seven years in each of the four towns' respective Adventurer Academies, from the time they were 11, until they were 18 – they received their First Job upon passing the Academy's entrance exams at 11, their Second Job promotion upon completing half the course at 15 years old, and their qualifying Third Job promotion upon graduation at 18.

Logan, however, had entered Kerning's Academy at the late age of 15, and had sped through each Job Advancement in a single year, attaining First Job at 16, Second Job at 17, and being granted the title of Dragon Knight at 18 in a record three years.

Any and all of Logan's warrior instructors had described the late entry as "superhuman" in nearly all respects – his strength, speed and fortitude were of levels unheard of in the history of the academy, and if his performance records during endurance tests were any indication, the Dragon Knight was literally tireless.

But before any of them could even think to examine the mystery who called himself "Logan", the Dragon Knight had immediately left upon his graduation, disappearing into the background of Victoria Island, where nobody heard neither hair nor hide about him.

That was because during his brief tenure at the Kerning Academy, Logan had kept hidden two very important facts from his instructors – one, the fact that he in fact hailed from Ludibrium, and two, the fact that he was a complete and total amnesiac.

Logan John Shepard was a mystery to all, even to himself.

His memory, hazy as it was, extended only as far back as when he was twelve years old. His first literal memory was of waking up bloodied, naked and confused inside a human medical bay in Omega Sector. The doctors there had treated whatever little wounds they could find on him, but much of the blood that had been found on him when he had been discovered lying unconscious in the Kulan fields by a patrol of marines… much of the blood had not been his.

The doctors had asked him many questions, probing him for answers, but had gotten very little constructive information out of the near-catatonic boy. As far as they could tell, his memory had been completely wiped out, and he had literally _no memories_ at all, from any period of his life before the time he had been discovered.

The doctors had originally intended to keep the boy for further study, but a young girl, one of the daughters of the scientists, had befriended the young boy, and had successfully managed to sneak him out of the complex, but not before giving him a necklace to remember her by. That necklace now rested on Logan's neck, and it was a necklace that the Dragon Knight never took off.

The night she had helped him escape, he had used the warp capsule she had snuck into his observation room, escaping directly to Ludibrium, where he had spent the next three years of his life wandering the world, learning whatever he could. With no memories, no connections, Logan had wandered Bera, literally Jobless, for three years, until he was fifteen years old, when he stumbled across an application poster for the Adventurer's Academy located in Kerning.

The young man had joined up in a heartbeat, and blazed through the Kerning Academy's curriculum in a record three years, displaying superhuman traits throughout the entire course of his training. "Inhuman" was a word that cropped up on his resume multiple times, and Logan tolerated it if only for the entertaining gapes that came from whoever took a look at it.

When he had graduated from the Academy, Logan had immediately returned to Omega Sector, in hopes of recovering his memories; Omega Sector's Black Ops section was famous for their notorious work in memory removal, modification, and recovery, thanks to the work of theirs that involved covering up the existence of aliens from the general public. The only reason that Logan knew of it was that it was covered as part of the Academy's curriculum, to prepare them for their Third Job promotion and the eventuality that they would venture to that area.

There, in Omega Sector, Logan had spent another four years, from the time he was eighteen until he was twenty-two, working for Omega Sector's Black Ops section. While he had not managed to make any significant headway in recovering his memories in that respect, he had managed to make several powerful connections along the way, gaining a reputation as a lethal soldier, and becoming a respected comrade of General Maestro himself.

Just how useful those connections soon came to light as he approached the normally obstructively bureaucratic Jr. Officer Medin, and nodded in greeting.

"Ah, Shepard!" The officer standing guard at Omega Sector's exit to Eos Tower greeted the Dragon Knight enthusiastically. "Been a while since we last saw each other, eh?"

"Long time no see, Medin." Logan replied with a grin, fistbumping his old comrade. "Maestro around? I need a couple of favors."

"Anything for you, after what you've done for us the past few years, Shepard." Medin beamed, and immediately smacked the button that opened the security gates into the compound. "Maestro's in the war room, finishing up a meeting with the rest of the brass right about now. The Grays have been on the move recently, but we can't really say what exactly it is they're up to. Our intelligence department is still trying to work that out."

"Ya don't say?" Logan quipped, genuinely intrigued. "Guess I'll have to ask the old man about it myself."

The Dragon Knight quickly strode into the compound, where the entire base was buzzing with activity. Omega Sector marines and guardsmen were running all over the place, either alone or in large groups. Sergeants and other non-commissioned officers were shouting orders left and right, and Logan soon found himself integrating seamlessly into his environment.

Ah, it felt _good_ to be back.

* * *

As Logan neared the security doors that led to General Maestro's war room, the Dragon Knight could already hear a number of voices engaging in a heated debate, with arguments and counter-arguments being thrown everywhere. No voices were raised, but there was no denying the underlying tension hidden beneath every word spoken.

Everyone knew the war against the Gray Empire had been going badly, and with the Mateon Swarm exacerbating the problem, Omega Sector's United Nation Space Command forces were being stretched far more thinly than they could cope with. Casualities were mounting on all fronts, and the UNSC was getting desperate.

Logan's assistance in that regard had done much to stem the tide of destruction, but there was only so much one man could do. As the Dragon Knight reached the security panel that would open the doors, he keyed in his biometric with his thumb, not even wincing as a tiny needle jabbed itself into his finger to take a DNA sample. Following that, he allowed the retinal scanner to pan itself over his eyes to make a final verification of his identity, and the security doors finally slid open.

The voices died down the moment the Dragon Knight stepped into the room. All around the room, General Maestro's entire war cabinet sat assembled. Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov sat next to Fleet Admiral Gerard DuGalle, at Maestro's right hand side, while on the opposite side of the table sat Lieutenant General Jack Granger, and Commander Michael McNeil.

"I see I've missed quite a bit while I was away." Logan remarked with a wry smile – very few things required a full meeting that included all of the brass, and usually a code-red emergency situation was one of them. However, upon seeing the Dragon Knight, General Maestro broke out into an almost imperceptible grin.

"Gentlemen, we're going to have to finish this meeting later. If you'd please give us a little privacy…" The old military commander said, and his command staff quickly filed out of the room, leaving Logan alone with Maestro.

"It's certainly been a while, hasn't it Shepard?" Maestro finally let his subtle smile break out into a full out grin, extending his hand out to Logan. "Three years, was it?"

"It's been a good three years, Maestro," The Dragon Knight replied, shaking his old comrade's hand. "Anything worth noting while I was gone?"

"Not much… Though Gray activity has been at an all-time high lately. There's no telling what they might be up to now. But never mind that, you've helped us enough as it is. Is there anything I can do for you, Shepard?"

Nodding and reaching into his pack, Logan tossed the pictures of Zeno he had taken from Hiroshi's report, as well as the Outlaw's report itself onto the table in front of Maestro. "You could start by giving me any information or updates on this little critter you might have. Any assistance you could provide in hunting it down would also come in handy."

Taking the pictures in hand and looking at them as his brow furrowed more and more deeply, Maestro sighed and shook his head, frowning.

"I'm sorry Shepard, old friend," Maestro muttered. "But you're on your own for this one. We've lost enough men trying to take that damned thing down as it is. Zeno is a Gray in a class all of its own; not even the Ultra or Chief Grays can match up to it."

"So I take it the war's going badly?"

"Are you kidding, Shepard?" The old general sighed regretfully. "Our resources and manpower have already been stretched to the limit trying to keep this alien incursion at bay. Son, we're the only thing that stands between them and the big wide Beran world that lies beyond these walls. I can provide you with intel and some supplies, but I won't be able to spare you any men to help you in your search."

"I guess I could have expected just about as much," Logan remarked wryly. "Well, thanks anyway, Maestro. That's already more help than you should be giving me, seeing how this war is going."

Maestro nodded wearily. "Dr. Kim has a Wave Translator that could help you hack into the Gray's battlenet and locate Zeno. I'll assign him to be your mission support during your search, but apart from that and loaning you some of our weaponry, I can't do anything else for you."

Logan nodded, but gave the old general his thanks anyway. Resignedly, the Dragon Knight stepped out of the war room, leaving Maestro to resume his cabinet meeting, and he immediately began striding down another familiar path through the base's corridors, this one leading steadily downwards.

If there was one person who could get him the help he needed without leeching too much off of General Maestro's resources, she would be in the silo.

* * *

The Sector's Silo area was as frantic with mechanical activity as he remembered it being. Robotic cranes were moving all over the place, and conveyor belts that delivered mechanical parts literally snaked all over the complex. The gigantic prototype mecha, _Liberty Prime, _that Dr. Kim and Porter had been working for several years to get operational, _still_ stood immobile in the very centre of the silo that had been built around it, and workers were swarming all over it like a colony of ants with construction tools, welding on external armour plates and installing internal systems.

Most people who wanted to get from one level of the silo to another would take the express elevators from the base's administrative lobby, but Logan, taking advantage of some of his more… "superhuman" traits, had developed a far more exciting method of getting around the silo.

Leaping off the ledge of the top level, where he had entered the silo from, Logan grabbed onto the cable of one of the cranes, and let the weight of his gear carry him down swiftly as he gripped on to the cable with just enough force to prevent himself from accelerating to terminal velocity… And as the cable carrying him neared its end, the Dragon Knight agilely swung himself around, and leapt to yet another nearby cable like an oversized monkey, catching onto the next wire and resuming his descent.

The Dragon Knight continued moving downwards in this manner for several moments, until the bottom floor of the silo finally came within sight… and with it, the sight of that familiar head of red hair that was so typically tied into a greasy ponytail that he had been looking for, and the familiar scent of engine grease that so typically surrounded her.

Grinning mischievously, Logan let go of his grasp of the cable he was holding onto, and let himself plummet the rest of the way down.

**_FOOM!_**

_"Kyaaaaaaah!"_

Screaming in fright as a massive impact suddenly crashed into the floor behind her, the woman whirled around, a pipe wrench brandished in her hands, when her arm was suddenly pushed down, and she was embraced in a bear hug despite the extremely greasy mechanic's jumpsuit she was wearing.

Breathing out in relief as she realized who it was, the woman dropped the wrench, and fiercely returned the hug with such fervor that even Logan was surprised for a second.

"_Jesus Christ_! For God's sake, Logan, don't ever do that again!" The redhead nearly shouted with a broad smile on her face as they let go of each other. "You scared the living crap out of me!"

Sniggering to himself, Logan grinned and gave the woman a playful slap on the shoulder. "It's great to see you again, Kay. How've you been?"

"Overworked, as usual." The redheaded mechanic said sourly, turning back to the workbench full of scattered parts she had been working on – for a brief moment, Logan was reminded of Hiroshi's own workshop back at the Marauders' HQ. "The Grays have been giving us hell lately, and the Mateons are just making things even worse. The brass ordered my department to try and reverse-engineer some of their weaponry, but most of it isn't even _compatible_ with our biology in the first place. The Grays rely on their psychokinetic powers, and Mateon weaponry, we hardly even _understand_ how their plasma-based technology works in the first place…"

As the tired Kay slowly went into yet another rant full of technological and biological terms, Logan simply grinned knowingly to himself, and shook his head. Even in the three years he had been gone, Kay hadn't changed one bit.

"Kay, as much as I'd love to hear how the past few years have been for you, you're going to have to repeat that in English for me," The Dragon Knight said with a grin, walking up to the workbench next to Kay to see what she was working on.

"Oh, right. Sorry about that." Kay apologized with a weary sigh. "The Grays have been running us ragged – tempers are flaring all over the place here, and today's just one of my rare days off. Guess it's just your luck that you came in at this time, huh?"

"I guess it is." Logan admitted, idly playing with the necklace that he wore. "I don't suppose I could call in a few favors?"

"I suppose it couldn't hurt." Kay shrugged, but then her eye caught the necklace that Logan was fingering, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Logan, you…"

The Dragon Knight simply gave the mechanic a grin. "Still remember the necklace you gave me?"

"As if I could ever forget." Kay returned the smile. "I'm surprised you're still wearing it. Who would've thought that the legendary soldier who joined our ranks three years ago would've turned out to be the very same boy I'd helped to escape this place when he was only twelve? I'm surprised you would even come back to this place."

"This place is where I was found where my memories were lost – the way I see it, it's as good a lead as any."

"So it is." Kay replied, turning away and walking off to a nearby aisle of lockers. "Maestro radioed ahead of you to inform me of your arrival, but I didn't think you'd arrive the way you did! Anyway, the old man has granted you up to Delta level clearance to the equipment we have. I heard you're going up against Zeno, so I took the liberty of scrounging up a little extra for you."

Going up to the security pad that kept the lockers secure, Kay punched in the passcode, and almost immediately the locker doors sprang open… revealing racks upon racks of military equipment. Streamlined suits of ballistic flak armour, more advanced and far bulkier CMC-300 Powered Combat Suits and the even larger CMC-660 Heavy Combat Suits with their wrist-mounted plasma-based Perdition flamethrowers, helmets, goggles… and rows and rows of guns, guns, and more guns.

"I wasn't aware they moved the entire armoury down to your level, Kay." Logan said with a low, impressed whistle, stepping forward slowly and touching one of the rifles on the rack, this one of a design he had never seen before. "And I don't recognize this design either. R&D made some changes?"

"Indeed they did," Kay replied, grabbing another rifle off the rack and a magazine from a nearby shelf. "Dr. Kim's department phased out the old MA5 series, and they designed a new rifle for us from the ground up."

Slamming the magazine in with a practiced movement and cycling the rifle's charging bolt, the mechanic tossed the rifle in Logan's direction, who caught it with with a practiced hand.

"C-14 Gauss Rifles. Marines around here like to call them 'Impalers'." Kay said with a grin as Logan hefted and inspected the rifle. "They use magnetic coils to fire eight-millimetre solid metal spikes at hypersonic velocities, capable of penetrating up to two inches of solid steel plating. One magazine carries sixty spikes, but this baby fires at a rate of one thousand and eight hundred rounds per minute – that's a lot of incentive for our marines to go trigger happy with it, so the rifle uses a capacitor system by default to fire in three-round bursts and keep our men from blowing through dozens of magazines' worth of ammo in mere seconds."

"That's a lot of firepower," Logan whistled appreciatively. "Roughly three times as powerful as the MA5Cs – when did R&D pump these out?"

"Just about a year ago," Kay answered. "And just in time too – our casualties were at an all time high when the Grays started pushing harder than ever, then Dr. Kim's department pumped these out in tandem with a new powered armour suit. C'mere – I'll show it to you."

Striding further down the aisle of lockers, Kay punched yet another button, and one suit in particular slid out, this one a dark steel gray with a visible metallic sheen, and notably slimmer and more streamlined than the standard-issue CMC suits that the marines usually wore. Underneath the separate plates of steel ablative alloys, Logan could see a black bodysuit that was seamlessly integrated with the rest of the armour.

"Meet the MJOLNIR Mark Six." Kay announced in as grand a voice she could muster, her voice nearly breaking as she struggled to contain her laughter at how ridiculous her acting was. "Dr. Kim personally led a team, myself included, to design this suit from scratch. Everything that went into making the old CMCs was tossed out the window when we made this baby. Everything about the MJOLNIR is brand new and improved over the older suits. It's lighter, faster, stronger, and tougher by factors of ten. And the best news? Maestro's decided to give you one suit for free as a gift."

"Damn." Logan could barely contain his grin. "I'll have to remember to thank the old man for that. Anything special about this armour I oughta know about?"

"It's got recharging energy shields, if that's what you're looking for." Kay answered with a wide smile. "That's the one breakthrough analyzing Mateon tech that we've managed to achieve in the past three years, if anything else. It increases your strength and speed by a factor of ten, five times more than the old CMCs, and if the energy shielding ever fails, the ablative plates are still capable of deflecting several dozen gauss rifle rounds before they penetrate."

"How does the energy shielding hold up, then?" Logan asked curiously, walking closer to the suit and inspecting it more closely. "For that matter, how does the shielding and armour itself hold up against Gray and Mateon weaponry?"

"Endurance is roughly reduced by half, compared to how it holds up against our own weapons." Kay admitted sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. "Still, that's a lot better than all the rest of our suits. The shielding can absorb up to a full magazine of gauss rifle fire, which roughly equates to ten psychic blasts from an Ultra Gray, or around twenty hits, give or take ten, from the Mateons' plasma guns, depending on which variants they're using. The armour itself can dissipate about a dozen hits, but don't take any more than that or you're going to be looking at a lot of holes in your suit."

"That's still better than anything I used back in the day," Logan muttered, and set a hand on the chestpiece of the MJOLNIR suit. "The old CMCs couldn't even hold up against two consecutive blasts from an Ultra Gray. Can't believe I'm actually going to get to use this... Got anything else for me, Kay?"

The mechanic pursed her lips for a moment, obviously thinking hard, but there was little else she could offer. Logan's Delta-level clearance allowed him access to most of Omega Sector's small-arms weaponry as well as their lighter vehicles like the Warthog LRVs and Vulture Hoverbikes, but he was still unable to commandeer their heavier pieces of artillery, like the Scorpion MBTs, Crucio Siege Tanks and their Hornet or Banshee VTOLs. However, something that was normally buried at the back of Kay's head suddenly came to the forefront, and she snapped her fingers in realization, her face lighting up.

"There is one last thing." The redhead said with a cheshire cat grin on her face, and she gestured at Logan to follow her.

"It's a personal project I've been pursuing for some time now, I use my days off to work on it. You could take it for a test run if you'd like." Kay explained as they approached what Logan recognized to be the basement of her workshop.

"Personal project?" Logan quipped, arching his eyebrow. "If any of your past 'personal projects' are anything to go by, I'm getting the impression you just managed to create your own home-made nuke."

Laughing as they descended the stairs leading into the basement, Kay replied, "Nah, not exactly, but it's pretty much just about powerful. Just wait, Logan – you'll see what I mean. Since I built it on my own personal time, this one's out of General Maestro's jurisdiction – feel free to take it for yourself. I'm never gonna get far enough out into the field to test this thing out anyway."

"I guessed as much," The Dragon Knight said as they finally entered the basement. "You're always stuck in the workshop working on God knows what and holy shit what the _fuck _is that thing?"

Logan's voice trailed off as he spied the massive… _something_ that lay on a lit pedestal in the centre of the basement, suspended and rotating in mid-air by an anti-gravity field.

It was too huge and blocky to be called a gun, but there was no denying the vague shape of a handgrip, a trigger, and a massive barrel the size of his skull that one end of the weapon ended in. The entire thing was almost as long as Logan was tall, reaching up to just about neck level for him, and it was coloured a dark olive green with underlying tones of matte gray.

"Kay… I don't know how the hell you managed to make something like that," Logan began, his mouth finally starting to work again after a few seconds of staring at the massive device. "But that is one _big fucking gun."_

Snorting in laughter at Logan's quip, Kay strode forward and disengaged the anti-gravity field suspending the device in the air, and caught it before it could clatter to the floor, grunting in exertion below its visible weight.

"It's called the Galilean Non-linear Rifle, Logan," The mechanic told him as she carried it over and handed it to him. "Though for simplicity's sake, you could just call it the Spartan Laser."

"BFG sounds way easier," The Dragon Knight insisted on the acronym he had just pulled out of nowhere, and took the massive gun from Kay, hefting it as though it were light as a feather. "Huh. Feels a little heavier than a rocket launcher. This one had better be good, Kay."

"Trust me, it is," Kay answered with a proud smile. "You could take on an army of demons with that thing and win with one shot – of course, the Spartan Laser's still in its experimental stages, so its power cells _will_ burn out after that one shot.

"Ace in the hole, eh?" Logan replied. "Don't worry – I know just when to use those. Now, where's the changing room? I need to suit up."

* * *

Kay had provided Logan with the necessary equipment to disassemble the MJOLNIR suit and reassembled it around his body. Suiting up within a matter of minutes and discarding the old suit of plate armour he had worn from Victoria Island, Logan was now packing several guns and different types of munitions into various duffel bags. Rifles, pistols, shotguns and whatnot were tossed into one, while grenades, spare ammo magazines and other accessories were thrown into another. The Dragon Knight had taken special care with the BFG though, and he had hitched it up to the magnetic clamps on the back of his new suit of MJOLNIR armour, securing it there where he could reach it in a moment's notice.

Shouldering his cargo, Logan strode up to the trunk of one of the massive Vulture hoverbikes, and yanked it open, tossing his two duffel bags inside and slamming it shut. Quickly striding over to the driver's seat, Logan swung his leg over to the other side with the practiced ease of someone who had been driving such a vehicle for years, and settled himself into the bike's chair. Shoving the security key that Kay had given him for that particular bike into its ignition slot, Logan gave it a solid twist, and let out a delighted grin as the Vulture's engine thrummed to life with a deafening roar.

The Dragon Knight gave the hoverbike's pedal a solid kick, and immediately the vehicle leapt to life, shooting forward out of its parking lot in Omega Sector's vehicle bay. Expertly controlling the bike's handlebars, Logan effortlessly steered the Vulture around until he reached the main compound's gate, where Kay was waiting for him.

"Good luck out there, Logan." The red-headed mechanic called out as Logan slowed down his bike's approach. "Be careful, Gray and Mateon activity around here is a lot more intense than it was back when you were around."

"Don't worry about me, Kay," Logan gave his childhood friend a knowing grin, before gunning the Vulture's throttle. "I know just how to take care of myself. It's the Grays you oughta be worrying about, cos there won't be much left of Zeno when I'm through with him."

Giving her a playful, final salute in thanks, the Dragon Knight streaked off atop his metal steed before Kay could answer, and the mechanic could only give a melancholic smile as she watched Logan ride off into the distance.

"Godspeed, John." Kay murmured Logan's middle name to herself, a name that only a few select individuals in the world had the privilege of knowing. "You're going to need that luck to deal with Zeno."

* * *

**Meanwhile, miles away to the south…**

The wizened alien figure sat in his chair, gazing over an array of surveillance screens. All around him in the tiny chamber he sat in, a multitude of screens lay side by side and atop each other, completely surrounding him. Each screen displayed one viewpoint of Omega Sector, as though a thousand tiny, unblinking eyes were forever watching over the entirety of its forested fields.

A myriad of activities, thousands of them, going on simultaneously covered the screens, yet none escape the wizened figure's gaze. One screen displayed the human marines of Omega Sector mounting one of their own into a Goliath Armoured Walker as they prepared to roll it out of the factory, while another displayed another displayed on ongoing battle between the Mateons and different contingent of marines. Yet another screen displayed an inside view of the Grays' main headquarters as well, the pale-skinned extraterrestrials scurrying to and fro, putting on powered armour suits of their own and powering up robotic exoskeletons. However, though none of these scenes escaped the figure's attention, there was one in particular that it sought out, and after but a moment of searching, it found it.

_His return is surprising…_ The figure thought to itself as it watched Omega Sector's new arrival streak out of the human base on a Vulture Hoverbike. _But, if anything, this is more of a pleasant surprise than anything else. After all, he had served as the predecessor to our greatest technological marvel now… it is only fitting that he see what he had helped to create._

Smiling predatorily to itself, the figure raised the stylus it held in its hand, and gave it a light tap – and miles below where he sat, a tortured roar filled with years of rage erupted from deep within the bowels of the base, as the gates of the prison for a gigantic behemoth, half organic and half machine, were finally unlatched.

* * *

The trees around him were but a green blur as Logan darted and weaved through the forested fields of Kulan, the wind biting into his face and howling in his ears. The biker goggles that he had put on before departing the base were the only thing enabling him to see unhindered right now – he certainly would still be able to see if they ever got knocked off, but it would certainly be very uncomfortable to do so.

As he continued weaving left and right, avoiding tree trunks and fallen wreckage by mere inches with insane manoeuvres no normal human could have possibly pulled off, the comm. bead that Logan wore in his ear crackled to life and he heard the familiar voice of Omega Sector's leading human scientist come on the line.

_"Sierra 117, this is Baseplate. Come in, Sierra 117, over."_

"This is Sierra 117, I read you loud and clear, Baseplate, over." Logan replied into his throat mic, twisting the Vulture around a fallen piece of wreckage that he recognized to be the inert carcass of a MT-09.

_"Sierra 117, for security purposes, please recite name, rank and serial number for voice and identity verification, over."_

Snorting inwardly, Logan yanked the Vulture's handlebar hard to the left, and narrowly slipped around a fallen tree trunk by mere inches. Even after three years, the paranoid Dr. Kim wasn't any less particular about security.

"This is Master Chief Petty Officer Logan John Shepard, designation SPARTAN-117, reporting for duty, over." The Dragon Knight replied into his mic sardonically with a sarcastic smile, making absolutely sure not to miss out a single detail.

_"Identity confirmed; welcome back, Shepard." _Dr. Kim's tone didn't change much, but Logan could hear the almost imperceptible smile in the good doctor's voice. Nearly everyone he saw in Omega Sector was practically ecstatic to see him back. _"I hear from General Maestro that you're about to go looking for Zeno."_

"Word around here travels fast, I see." Logan remarked as he saw a massive tree trunk suddenly come up in front of him, one too large for him to dodge around. Without missing a beat, Logan depressed his trigger fingers, and triggered the Vulture's underslung frag grenade launcher, shooting out one of the tiny explosive devices and blowing the trunk to smithereens, allowing him to pass through unhindered. "What have you got for me, doc?"

_"Only the latest information hacked from the Grays' battlenet itself." _Dr. Kim answered proudly over the comm. channel. _"My Wave Translator decoded their transmissions in a flash. Now, here's what I managed to learn about Zeno…"_

As Dr. Kim recited the specifications of Zeno that he had learned from the Gray Battlenet, Logan automatically took the information and compared it with the report that Hiroshi had given him prior to his departure, and found to his consternation that it was slightly out of date. Yes, the background data on Zeno was accurate: Zeno was the result of the Grays' attempts to create a super-soldier of their own to aid in the war against the humans of Omega Sector, to counter the human's black ops SPARTAN commandoes, but while they had succeeded in increasing nearly every physical aspect of their Barnard Gray subject, it came at the cost of nearly all the subject's psychic powers.

The outlaw's report detailing Zeno's physical enhancements were also up-to-date; although with each and every one of the enhancements listed, Logan's discomfort at nagging sense of familiarity he felt could only grow.

_Carbide Ceramic Ossification – the grafting of advanced materials: special metal and ceramic layers, onto the subject's skeletal structure, making their bones virtually unbreakable._ Clenching his knuckles involuntarily, Logan's mind thought back to the time when the Marauders had taken a trip to Eos Tower – while they had been at the section where the tower simply plummeted for at least ten stories down.

* * *

_"Whoa… Shit, guys. That's a long way down." Ethan remarked as he peered over the ledge's edge with his Byakugan activated. "I don't think any of us would be able to survive that without breaking several bones. We'd better take the portals down."_

_"Sounds good. C'mon, Trish," Isabella nodded, and immediately headed for the nearest window leading into the tower, where the portal inside would transport her safely down one floor, the priestess following her promptly through._

_"Aww, man, and here I was hoping for a roller-coaster ride down." Abel was visibly dejected at being denied an exhilarating trip downwards, while Juliana hyperactively grabbed the White Knight's wrist and dragged him forcibly towards the portal._

_"Oh, come on, Abel, it ain't so bad," The young Chief Bandit said as they stepped through, cutting off the rest of her sentence._

_Snorting, Logan watched as the rest of the guild slowly filed through the portals leading downwards one by one, and prepared to step through once only him and James were left on the ledge. As the crusader was about to step through, a Helly suddenly streaked out of nowhere, and blitzed itself straight for James, intent on knocking him away from the portal and off the ledge._

_"James!" Logan's body moved automatically of its own accord, blurring forward and shouldering the crusader into the portal while taking the brunt of the Helly's blow. While it felt like a baby's kick in comparison to other attacks Logan had endured before, the knockback wasn't any less intense, and Logan found himself being lifted off his feet and being thrown clear off the ledge._

_"What the- Shit! Logan!" Cursing at the sheer suddenness of events, James hurled himself back out of the portal despite being only halfway through, and lunged after the falling Dragon Knight, backhanding the Helly away with an off-handed swing with his father's Heaven's Gate._

_The crusader activated his Sharingan, grabbing for Logan's flailing limbs, but the Dragon Knight had already fallen too far by then. As Logan fell, the wind roaring in his ears, he could only see but the briefest glimpses of his guildmates' horrified expressions, as they watched him plummet nine stories downwards._

_And then suddenly something slammed into his back, there was a sudden stop, and the breath was crushed out of his lungs… but aside from that, he felt no other pain._

_Coughing and groaning as he sat up, Logan looked around and saw to his amazement that he had fallen outside the bottom portal… but more importantly, as he flexed his arms and legs, and even got to his feet, he realized that none of his bones were broken at all._

* * *

_Now that was a hell of a discovery_. Logan thought to himself, remembering how shocked Tricia had been when the Marauders' resident healer had rushed down upon seeing him plummet down from the ledge he had been knocked off, only to discover that Logan was virtually unwounded from his fall. _It's too bad I couldn't pull off shit like that again – Telfair's face was priceless._

With a subtle jerk of his wrist, Logan shifted the Vulture to the left slightly, narrowly avoiding a rocky outcropping that would have gutted his bike in half, and focused his attention back on the information on Zeno Dr. Kim was providing him with.

_Muscular Enhancement injections – the intramuscular injection of a protein complex into the subject's body, increasing tissue density and decreasing lactate recovery time._ In other words, increasing the subject's strength, fortitude, and endurance _all_ to superhuman levels. Logan's muscles tightened unconsciously as he remembered yet another occasion from the past…

* * *

_"Ngghhh! Come on, James, you're a goddamned crusader, can't you even freaking lift this piece of rubble up a few inches!" Ethan grunted in exertion as he pushed with all his strength again, his best friend straining himself equally in front to him._

_"I could if you'd stop shouting in my damned ear!" The crusader grunted back testily through gritted teeth as he pulled up as hard as he could, attempting to lift up the gigantic piece of Stone Golem rubble that had pinned Ethan and Juliana to the ground. Screaming in effort as his muscles flexed mightily, James pulled upwards with all his strength, but to no avail – the leftover piece of rubble from the corpse of the stone golem they had slain and had fallen over Ethan and Juliana refused to budge. "Come on, you son of a bitch, _move!"

_"Um, James…?" Juliana said in a very small, nervous voice as a giant shadow suddenly rose up from behind them. "You might want to look behind you."_

_"Huh?" Turning his head to look over his shoulder, James' eyes widened, and the crusader virtually sweatdropped in exasperation as he beheld the sight of a Dark Stone Golem rearing up behind him. For just the briefest moment, James was grateful that his girlfriend was not there to reprimand him for the string of expletives he was about to let out. "Oh, for fu-"_

**ZHWING!**

_There were three sudden flashes of steel, and a series of large slash marks appeared on the side of the golem's head, sending the giant stone construct reeling. Roaring in pain as chunks of rubble were sent flying, the golem stumbled backwards, and Logan and Abel suddenly appeared before it, their weapons drawn and ready._

_"Sheez, am I glad to see you guys!" James called out in relief, unwilling to let go of the rubble lest it crush Juliana and Ethan beneath its weight._

_"Abel, go get Ethan and Juliana out from underneath that." Logan ordered curtly, sweeping his palm across his Fairfrozen's shaft and dropping into a ready stance. "I'll deal with the golem."_

_"You said it, pal," Abel nodded, and sheathed both his katanas, sprinting over to where James waited. "Move aside, bro – let me show you how it's done!"_

_Shouting in effort as he cranked open the First Gate within himself and amplified his strength twofold, the White Knight's raging red aura sparked to life around him, and Abel grabbed a hold of the piece of rubble next to James, heaving upwards with all his strength. However, despite the White Knight's effort combined with James' and Ethan's, the piece of rubble still budged only a few inches upwards, hardly enough to allow them to skitter out from underneath it._

_"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Abel groaned in complaint as even his First Gate-enhanced strength failed to move the rubble. "Am I gonna have to open up to Fifth Gate to move this thing?"_

_"Step aside, bub," The Dragon Knight's voice suddenly sounded from behind them, punctuated by a gargantuan crash, and Abel looked back gaping as Logan sidled in between them, the Dark Stone Golem crashing to the Sleepywood forest floor behind him in several pieces._

_Logan reared his right leg back, and before Ethan could even begin to protest, the Dragon Knight swung his leg forward, and smacked the underside of the piece of rubble with a massive kick – the giant piece of rock actually _lifted up_ by a few feet, and Logan caught it before it could fall further, and with a grunt, gave it a heavy push, lifting up and clear of Ethan and Juliana as it slammed into the ground opposite them with a heavy crash._

_Logan finally exhaled from the effort, shaking his limbs lightly to work out the kinks, when he saw the rest of his guildmates staring at him with agape mouths and awestruck expressions._

_"What?"_

* * *

Shaking his head mirthfully at the memory, Logan didn't suppress the grin that came unbidden with it, and continued listening to Dr. Kim's ongoing commentary of the cyborg he was hunting for.

_Catalytic Thyroid Implants – the implantation of a platinum pellet containing growth hormone catalysts, boosting the subject's growth of skeletal and muscle tissue._ Again, the Dragon Knight's muscles bunched up uncomfortably, thinking of how much larger and stronger he was than the average warrior. James' build, though lean, was far from slight, quite typical of the average warrior, but yet Logan was almost half again the crusader's size, easily towering over his guild leader by a full head, and sporting muscles even larger than Abel's, who had James only slightly beaten in the bulk department.

_Occipital Capillary Reversal – The submergence of blood vessel flow within the subject's sensory organs, producing a marked increase in sensory perception and granting the subject sharply increased senses. _Logan's eyes, ears, and nose all prickled uneasily as he thought of the inhumanly sharp senses that he possessed. He was always the first to pick up on things, far before even Ethan could spot them, and the ranger was one of the best damned trackers on Victoria Island. His nose could sniff out an ambush from a mile away, his ears could pick up the slightest rustle of movement from a fidgeting enemy, and his eyes could pick out even a black cat slinking through a pitch-black room.

_"_And lastly, _Superconducting Fabrication of Neural Dendrites – the alteration of bio-electrical nerve transduction to shielded electronic transduction, resulting in a three hundred percent increase in the subject's reflexes."_ Dr. Kim finished reading over the radio, as Logan once again brushed past a piece of wreckage with inches to spare with only a slight movement to the side."This final process was the riskiest, as it had a significant chance of causing severe mental retardation, and a marked decrease in a Gray's inherent psychic abilities."

"The Grays only have the resources to create a Zeno every two decades, and apparently the psychic powers of the latest one did not survive the process – their reports detail it as an unintelligent, mindless brute. This one has been confirmed to be the second one they have created so far, but as far as our intelligence department is able to determine, it is unknown what had happened to the first one. It has never been encountered, so HIGHCOM dismissed it as a failed and discarded experiment."

"Yeah, score one for military _'intelligence'_," Logan snorted. That was a real oxymoron if he'd ever heard one. Still, he could not shake off the nagging sense of familiarity that he was developing – hearing the reports of Zeno's augmentations, it felt to him as though he had undergone such enhancements himself.

While the theory itself seemed ludicrous, as it was deemed that no human could ever have survived such a process, Logan could not help but feel that there was some truth to the theory. He had always sensed something different about himself, something that set him apart from the others. His capabilities always seemed to exceed that of his fellow guild members in dangerous situations, and he could come up, without fail, with at least one matching instance where he displayed superhuman traits similar to what Zeno was supposedly capable of, for every listed enhancement made to the alien cyborg.

_Well, if I'm the result of some alien experiment, I guess I'll only find out soon enough. _Logan thought to himself as he followed Dr. Kim's directions to find Zeno, zipping through the Kulan Fields and running over the occasional Barnard Gray and Zeta Gray that were unfortunate enough to get in his way. _Given the fact that I came from Omega itself, the whole theory isn't that far-fetched._

Hiroshi's report was spot-on as far as Zeno's background information and physical augmentations were concerned – however, field reports filed in by Omega Sector marines indicated that Zeno was far tougher than its initial projected capabilities. The numbers Hiroshi had run in his analysis were from mere months after a Zeno had undergone the surgical augmentation procedure – the alien cyborg would only get stronger, faster, and more resilient as it adjusted to the augmentations made to its physiology.

And it had had _years_ to do that – recent reports from survivors of Omega Sector units that had encountered the massive cyborg told of a titanic, half-organic, half-machine monstrosity that was capable of tearing up the earth with its bare hands, sending shockwaves traveling along the ground with each smash of its metallic fists against the dirt, and sending 66-ton Crucio Siege Tanks flying like toys.

On-board weaponry built into Zeno's robotic arms only made it deadlier, able to spew out phase disruptor fire and anti-matter missiles at horrific rates, completely demolishing everything in its path. Frowning, Logan compared the data to the report that Hiroshi had given him, where it had stated that Zeno was simply a genetically and cybernetically enhanced Barnard Gray, reduced to a powerful brute with far greater strength and resilience at the cost of its psychic abilities.

Apparently the Grays had been hard at work on improving their Super-Gray. The Dragon Knight was visibly disconcerted by the information, but Logan decided to focus on the mission, dismissing the reports of on-board weaponry as mere exaggerations, and turned two Barnard Grays that were unwise enough to place themselves in his Vulture's path into roadkill, as he followed Dr. Kim's latest directions to the Gray's Prairie.

* * *

Meanwhile, atop a lofty perch overlooking the prairie, stood the wizened alien figure, gazing out upon the open, forested fields of Kulan. Towering behind him, towards his right, stood Zeno, the gargantuan behemoth standing still as a statue, awaiting its master's orders.

As the alien figure looked out over the horizon, a tiny, moving speck appeared in the distance, one that left a visible trail of dust in its wake as it weaved left and right through the Kulan forest.

_I wonder if he'd recovered any of his memories after all these years._ The wizened figure thought to itself, and smiled mentally to itself. _It would certainly be a shame if he would deprive me of the pleasure of showing him what he truly is._

Beckoning to Zeno behind him, the Supreme Chief Gray disappeared from sight in a flash of blue light, followed promptly by the giant cyborg behind him… and then followed by the legions of Grays behind it.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own MapleStory, or any other references or shoutouts to other series that appear in this story. This is a work of fiction, any resemblance of characters or events to real-life persons or events is purely coincidental.

* * *

A/N: Whoaaaaaaa it took a freakin long time to get this baby out. I was waiting for Absol Master's next chapter of OtDotS to get released before letting this chapter out, but I think I've waited long enough... Time to get this show on the road! Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Chapter Two of WEAPON X!

* * *

**The Marauders: Episode IV**

**WEAPON X**

**Kulan Fields, Gray's Prairie**

The Dragon Knight had already been driving for nearly thirty minutes when he finally entered the Gray's Prairie – apparently it didn't differ very much from the rest of the Kulan Fields he had been driving through the past half hour, Logan noted with a wry smirk.

He continued weaving through the forests for several minutes when he suddenly felt it – a sudden burst, a surge of psychic energy, from behind him, but this one was wild, untamed. Completely uncontrolled…

Like how a Gray that had lost control of its psychic faculties would seem.

Like how _Zeno_ would seem.

The Dragon Knight had only a moment's notice before a gigantic _something _suddenly barrelled into his path, and Logan immediately _reacted_; he jerked his Vulture's handlebars hard to the left, steering as hard as he could in an evasive manoeuvre.

But despite his timely reaction, a giant fist still somehow managed to intercept his bike, and knocked it flying through the air with a massive swing.

Throughout the entire blur of events Logan was unable to get a clear glimpse of his assailant, but with the enraged roar that was ringing in his ears the entire time, plus the sheer size of the creature that had attacked him, enough to dwarf even the Vulture he was riding on… there was no doubt that it was Zeno.

Sent flying from his Vulture as the hoverbike tumbled end over end in mid-air, Logan's training took over as he reflexively tucked himself into a ball, grunting as he hurtled into the ground and began rolling in an attempt to prevent a disabling fall. Several moments later, there was a sudden crash and an equally abrupt stop, and then the blaring of his suit's alarms began ringing in his ears, indicating to him that his MJOLNIR armour's shields were completely depleted.

Gasping for air as the air around him suddenly popped and his shields began to recharge, the alarms in his helmet fading away, Logan lay there for several seconds, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Groaning as he shook his head in an attempt to clear it, the Dragon Knight groggily pushed himself up into a sitting position, examining his surroundings.

The very first thing that he saw was the fallen tree trunk that had a fresh impact mark on where it had been broken off from its now-current stump. Logan got to his feet as he experimentally twisted around to make sure nothing was sprained or broken, and winced as several menacing cracks issued from his back.

_Ouch… well that had to hurt…_ The Dragon Knight thought to himself absently as he realized what an impact he must have made if he had split that tree in half just with the impact of his body alone. Almost instinctively he reached over his back to grab his gauss rifle, when his palm only met the handle of his Fairfrozen, brushing against the massive metal frame of the gun he had christened the "BFG".

"Son of a bitch!" Logan cursed quietly to himself as he realized that his duffel bags of weapons and ammunition had been lost along with his Vulture – if he was going to find his ordnance, he was going to have to find his vehicle as well.

_Well, no problem with that. _The Dragon Knight thought absently. _Just follow the trail of broken trees and bushes, easy as pie. Only thing is…_

Frowning, Logan sighed as he unsheathed his Fairfrozen and began resignedly trekking through the forest. The Grays would definitely be flocking to that location as well to find him. At least he still had Kay's BFG with him though – the MJOLNIR's magnetic clamps had performed their job admirably, and the cannon's solid weight upon was back was very reassuring.

Following the trail of destruction through the forest that his Vulture had left, Logan absently wondered to himself, _I wonder how James and the others are doing…_

_

* * *

_

**Marauder's HQ**

_"Hakke: Hyaku Nijyuu Hachi Shō!" [Eight Trigrams: One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Palms!]_

Before Hiroshi could even register what was happening, Ethan's body erupted into a flurry of explosive, darting movements, the azure motes of light that were his hands flitting around faster than Hiroshi's eyes could follow. A single movement would result in a single Husk getting rewarded with a hole in its head, dropping it to the floor, and any of them that came within two feet of Ethan were instantly decimated.

_Damn… I've never seen him move that fast before! _Hiroshi thought briefly to himself, but he quickly turned his attention away from the ranger, and turned around to face the suit of armour that he had been working on ever since this whole fiasco had started.

A single secret button had been installed right next to base of the iron stand that supported the armour's frame, and Hiroshi immediately found it with hardly any difficulty, stomping his foot down on the button despite the flood obscuring his vision.

Another panel, this one filled with buttons and switches as well, rose up from the water, and Hiroshi immediately flipped and pressed every single one of them. In response, the stand released the armour instantly from lockdown, each of its individual pieces hanging loose and ready to be worn.

Knowing that he had but seconds to act, for Ethan could only keep up his barrage of blows for so long, Hiroshi moved quickly. Flipping the pairs of switches under the panels that read "Gauntlets" and "Boots", the outlaw turned around, and stepped inside the stand.

Mechanical arms came to life, springing out of hidden compartments in the stand, and hooked their robotic fingers around the gauntlets and boots of the suit that stood assembled inside, disassembling them into their component parts in the blink of an eye and bringing them to where Hiroshi stood. The outlaw stretched his arms out, and the mechanical arms began to assemble the gauntlets around his outstretched forearms, metal plates and joints clicking together as bolts and screws were tightened and fastened on.

The same happened for his boots as Hiroshi took a step forward into the exposed soles of the greaves he had created. The rest of it was assembled around his ankles and calves, all manner of assorted parts clicking and clanking together like a jigsaw puzzle being put together as more nuts and bolts were spun and tightened, securing the plates together, until Hiroshi stood wearing a pair of gauntlets and greaves that seemed just as integrated with the rest of his body as though it were a part of him to begin with.

And it finished just in time, too – as the last three remaining the Husks threw themselves at Ethan, the ranger expended the last two blows he had for his technique, flooring two of them, but left himself completely open to attack from the third one.

Just Ethan looked up in desperation, the Husk about to sink its rotting teeth into his neck, a golden-white blur slammed right into the undead minion, and sent it flying clear across the room.

Gasping in exhaustion as he recovered from his technique, Ethan looked up, and saw Hiroshi clad in jet-black gauntlets and greaves, the armour appearing so streamlined that it almost seemed as though it were a part of his body. The entirety of the exterior shells of the gauntlets and greaves were composed of vein-like structures, and from the grin that Hiroshi was wearing, Ethan could tell that he was looking very much forward to using them.

Snarling, the Husk that Hiroshi had knocked down scrambled back up onto its feet, gibbering madly and rushing at the Japanese outlaw – Hiroshi simply raised one of his Peacemakers, and shattered a hole the size of a dinner plate in the Husk's chest with an Ice Splitter shot.

Gaping at the new orifice it had gained, the Husk's mouth remained hung open in disbelief as Hiroshi cocked the hammer back on his second Peacemaker, and delivered another shot, this time a Flamethrower, as he fired from the hip and disintegrated the Husk's head in an explosion of flame.

However, Zabuza was not to be intimidated by this newfound display of strength.

"Hmph!" The Scion scoffed at the new gauntlets and greaves that Hiroshi was sporting, and kept his hand maintained inside the sphere of water that was keeping James imprisoned. "That suit of armour is incomplete, what do you possibly think you could do to me with just mere _parts_ of it!"

"This." The outlaw merely responded, and unloaded the rest of his Flamethrower and Ice Splitter Mk. II shots at the Scion – Zabuza immediately raised his other hand, and a protective, iron-hard wall of water sprang up between him and the outlaw, deflecting his incendiary and cryo rounds effortlessly with hardly a mark.

However, Hiroshi did not pause – instead, the outlaw merely grinned, and golden-white bands of light suddenly flared to life on his greaves, flowing across its exterior shell in concentric bands.

Gaping as he watched, Ethan saw Hiroshi begin to move with a swiftness that he had never witnessed before in his life, as he heard a deep, gravelly voice utter out from nowhere…

**"Maximum Speed."**

The outlaw suddenly burst forward in a surge of speed that surpassed even his own _Hirenkyaku, _if only by a narrow margin, but there was no denying that Hiroshi was faster.

Before he knew it, Hiroshi was right in front of Zabuza, and the Scion had just enough time to widen his eyes in shock before…

**"Maximum Strength."**

The black vein-like bands on the exterior shell of Hiroshi's gauntlets immediately swelled and tinged red, and the outlaw thrust his fist forward in a Flash Fist attack.

Immediately, the same iron-hard wall of water that had blocked Hiroshi's shots effortlessly sprang up again, and this time, the outlaw's gauntlet ploughed right through it as though it were made of wet paper.

Zabuza only had time to utter half a curse before Hiroshi's strengthened gauntlet slammed straight into his face, and then the Scion was sent flying across the workshop, his hand torn from the spherical water prison that held James captive. With the link to its caster broken, the water prison disintegrated, and James quickly leapt out of it, coming to his feet standing atop the water just as Zabuza himself had done so minutes ago.

A roaring curse suddenly made itself known to Hiroshi, and out of nowhere a pair of Hwabis embedded themselves in his gut – the bulletproof vest that he was wearing beneath his tunic barely stopped the Lucky Seven, but that didn't stop the twin blows from knocking the wind out of him and blowing him across the room much like how he had done so to Zabuza.

Gasping as he landed with a giant splash in the water, Hiroshi scrambled back onto his feet, trying to ignore how winded he was, and he looked around to realize that Ethan had been hit in a similar manner as well – the ranger had another pair of Hwabis stuck in his abdomen, stopped just short of penetrating lethally by his chain mail, and he looked just as incapacitated as Hiroshi was.

James however, had managed to get out unscathed, mostly thanks due to his Sharingan. Having seen the attack coming, James swept Zangetsu to the side in a sweeping motion, deflecting the throwing stars sent flying his way, and had raised the Devil Bringer just in time to block a slash from Zabuza's massive sword, holding fast with the gauntlet despite the herculean amount of strength that he felt the Scion applying.

"That was just _luck!_" Zabuza snarled in James' face as he struggled to overcome the crusader's immovable defence. "I just lost myself temporarily and cancelled the technique-"

"No,_ you_ didn't." James shot back, forcefully shoving back with the Devil Bringer at the same time. "You were _forced_ to cancel it."

Eyebrows twitching at the crusader's audaciousness, Zabuza growled defiantly, a vein bulging in annoyance in his temple, and he stood there, his eyes and blade locked with James' own, neither of them backing down.

"I'll warn you, _Zabuza,_" James muttered darkly, spitting out the Scion's name like a curse. "The same technique won't work on me twice – don't count on getting me caught in another Water Prison. So… what are you going to do _now_?"

The vein in his temple bulging even further as his ire rose to new levels, Zabuza scowled undauntedly, and pushed even harder than he ever had before. James started in surprise as he was actually forced back a step, and the crusader immediately doubled his efforts to keep the Scion at bay, but it was too much – Zabuza was just too strong. The Scion shoved a second time, and this time James was pushed back _two_ steps, nearly staggering and losing his balance.

Cursing as he realized that there was no way he would be able to win by grappling against Zabuza, James braced himself for two seconds… and then parried aside with the Devil Bringer all his might, shoving Zabuza's giant blade to the side.

Almost as though he expected James to capitalize on that, Zabuza immediately leapt backwards the moment his blade was sent flying wide, but James did not press the attack. Instead, he followed Zabuza's movement… and copied his backwards leap perfectly.

The Scion's hands immediately formed another seal, this time seal of the Ox, and though he was yards away from Zabuza, James' eyes widened in recognition… And Ethan saw it too.

"His Sharingan…"

The duelling pair landed at almost symmetrical distances from where they had originally stood, their hands moving in a blur. Zabuza was forming hand seals in rapid succession, as Ethan could see from where he lay with his Byakugan, and the Scion was chanting rapidly under his breath as well.

**"Ox… Monkey… Rabbit… Rat… Boar… Rooster… Ox… Horse… Rooster**…

And as Ethan focused on James, he realized that the crusader was doing _the exact same thing_.

**"Ox… Monkey… Rabbit… Rat… Boar… Rooster… Ox… Horse… Rooster**…"

The two were moving in complete synchronization, their movements flawlessly replicated by the other that Ethan had no idea who was initiating what.

**"Rat ... Tiger ... Dog ... Tiger ... Snake ... Ox ... Ram ... Snake ... Boar ... Ram ... Rat... Monkey ... Rooster ... Dragon ... Rooster ... Ox ... Horse ... Ram ... Tiger ... Snake ... Rat ... Monkey ... Rabbit ... Boar ... Dragon ... Ram ... Rat ... Ox ... Monkey ... Rooster... Rat ... Boar ..."**

_**"Rooster!"**_

Ethan suddenly felt a snap in the mana fields intertwining the two combatants, and as he watched, James and Zabuza moved in perfect unison, casting _the exact same spell at the exact same time._

**"**_**Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu!"**_

**"**_**Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu!" **__[Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!]_

With flawless synchronization, two gigantic, moving shapes began to shift out of the water from behind James and Zabuza. Moving as one, two immense dragon heads reared out of the water, and immediately dove towards each other, lunging for each others' throats.

The two dragon heads slammed together in a massive wave of water, sending blasts of it flying everywhere as they disintegrated against one another. Hiroshi yelled out in surprise as the waves crashed over him with enough force to actually sweep him off his feet, and as he struggled to surface again, he saw the James and Zabuza had somehow gotten into yet another blade lock.

_All right... This is starting to get weird._ Zabuza thought disconcertedly to himself as he desperately pushed against Zangetsu in an attempt to keep James distracted. _What the heck is going on here?_

_The Sharingan is supposed to be a technique where the user memorizes the opponent's technique, _then_ he copies it! _The Scion thought furiously. _But then, his technique was cast at the same time as mine! Could he have...?_

___Before him, the crusader's foreboding crimson Sharingan stared right back into his eyes, with promises of pain and death, and Zabuza, for the very first time in his life, found himself being downright unnerved by what he saw._

_My God… This guy…_

___Realizing that there was something very different about his opponent now, Zabuza immediately broke the blade lock and leapt backwards, watching his opponent warily even as James copied his backwards jump almost perfectly with unnerving precision._

___Deciding to test his gut feeling out, Zabuza began running in a circle around James… and was not disappointed as the crusader began to mirror his movements perfectly, running even at the exact same speed while moving the exact same foot he was moving._

___Cursing silently, the Scion quickly brought himself to an abrupt stop, and swiftly adopted the stance for casting the Hidden Mist technique… and his eyes widened in shock as he realized that James had adopted the exact same stance that he did._

_Damn it!____ Zabuza swore inwardly, his eyes narrowing as he experimentally brought his raised right arm down. __My movements, all of them… they're being perfectly…_

_"__Predicted by him?" James suddenly said, bringing his right arm down as well, a perfect mirror image of the Scion's movement._

_What the-?____ Zabuza's eyes widened even further in surprise. __He- he read what I was going to say in my mind?_

___As he kept his sight locked upon the crusader, his gaze met unflinchingly with the crimson stare of James' own Sharingan, and the unnerving three tomoes that surrounded his central pupil seemed to draw and suck Zabuza in until they were all he could focus on, and it was all he could do to simply stay aware of his surroundings._

_Damn it, this guy…____ The Scion thought to himself, cold sweat beading on his forehead as he shifted his stance into the seal of the Rooster, mentally preparing yet another technique to cast. He couldn't lose focus here, not now…_

_"__Has such creepy-looking eyes, hmm?" The crusader murmured, copying Zabuza's shift into the Rooster seal perfectly, completely in sync with the Scion's movements._

___A vein bulged in Zabuza's temple, his eyes narrowing in ire. How dare this pup…!_

_"__Hmph!" The Scion exclaimed contemptuously, rapidly shifting his seal into that of the Tiger. "All you're doing is indiscriminately imitating! Nothing original about your techniques here!"_

_"__You'll never beat me, you monkey!"_

_"__You'll never beat me, you monkey!"_

_Guh!_ Zabuza started as James copied him, **word for word, in perfect timing with what he said.** _All right, that is THE LAST STRAW!_

"I'm going to make sure you never open that copycat mouth of yours again, Cyrus!" The Scion yelled out indignantly as he rapidly went through a number of seals so quickly that even Ethan couldn't even make them out – Zabuza's hands were an indecipherable blur.

But before Zabuza could make the final seal, a shadowy image began to form itself behind James, and as the Scion watched in involuntary fascination, the incorporeal, misty shape began to take solid shape… and eventually manifested itself as a physical copy of Zabuza himself.

_What-? _The Scion thought to himself, his fingers freezing where they were in shock, unable to budge even an inch. _Is that… me? No, that can't be! Is he about to use an illusionary technique?_

And then before Zabuza could react, James formed the final seal that the Scion had been intending to perform, and the tomoes of his Sharingan began spinning as they drew Zabuza inward ever further than before.

"_**Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu!"**__ [Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique!]_

The crusader's eyes snapped open even further then they already were, and a swirling torrent of water suddenly roared to life behind him, curling up for but a moment before it uncoiled itself, and hurtled straight at the frozen Scion.

"I-impossible!" Zabuza exclaimed in disbelief, just a mere second before the torrent of water slammed right into him and carried him right off his feet, carrying him helplessly along its unforgiving currents.

_This can't be happening!_ Zabuza thought to himself frantically as he sought to regain his balance. _I was the one who tried to cast the technique…_

The currents carrying him were so strong and so chaotic that the Scion was tossed about like a rag doll within the waters, and even as he gave his all, lungs burning, in trying to fight against it and escape, the waters were just too strong. He couldn't break through!

… _But somehow he managed to end up casting it before I did!_

The waters were so chaotic and forceful in their currents that Zabuza had no idea how long he had tumbled and crashed head over heels, that his sense of up and down, left and right, had been completely destroyed. After what seemed like an eternity later, the Scion suddenly felt his back slam into something unforgivingly hard – gasping for air as the waters finally receded and allowed him to breathe again, Zabuza tried to move, only to find that the only thing he could do was twitch his fingers weakly.

A gauntleted hand suddenly grabbed him by the throat, pinning him to the wall of the workshop, and Zabuza gasped raggedly, coughing out water he had inhaled. As he looked up, he was greeted by the sight of James standing over him, his left hand coiled tightly around the Scion's throat and pinning him against the wall.

"This battle is over." The crusader declared darkly, his Sharingan flaring with power as they subconsciously sucked Zabuza into their crimson depths once more, its tomoes spinning faster than ever.

"H…how?" Zabuza spluttered out raggedly, his mind steel reeling from the attack James had taken and turned around on him. "Are you able… to see the future?"

"Yes." James answered, his eyes unreadably dark, and as Zabuza watched helplessly, the crusader raised his other hand behind him, his entire fist crackling with electricity, outlining his face with the light it cast and illuminating it in a deathly terrifying shadow. "You are going to die here."

Unexpectedly, the Scion burst out in mocking laughter, and actually glared back at James, a derisive grin forming beneath his mask despite the obviously disadvantageous position he was in.

"You wouldn't dare." Zabuza declared, but there was no desperation or fear in his voice – simply a quiet conviction, and an absolute sureness of his words. "You're no killer, Cyrus – you're just a boy with delusions of grandeur! You don't have what it takes to be a murderer… much less what it takes to take back your precious woman!"

As Hiroshi watched the exchange of words, he caught a brief glimpse of shifting in James' eyes, yet that brief glimpse was all he needed to catch all of his attention… And he realized to his mounting horror that James' Sharingan was beginning to shift shape.

_No… _The Outlaw realized to himself in growing dread. _His Sharingan maturing fully must have paved the way for it to ascend to the next level!_

"No, James! Don't do it!" Hiroshi screamed, but his words went unheard to the crusader; incensed beyond belief as the memories of Tricia being _ripped_ away from him by Ergoth were replayed in his mind, James' throat locked in grief and anger, and he let out a tortured, anguished scream that echoed through the entire workshop.

"_Tsukuyomi!"_

From where Ethan and Hiroshi could see, Zabuza suddenly stiffened in horror for a split second, but nothing else happened… and then he abruptly slumped in James' grasp, appearing even more exhausted and pained than he already was…

Almost as though he had gone through an eternity of torture in an instant.

But whatever James had done to him, it had obviously still not broken the Scion's will. Even with James' Chidori held against his throat, Zabuza still faced him defiantly in the face of death.

"Perhaps… I was mistaken about you… Cyrus…" The Scion gasped out raggedly, but with a hint of satisfaction in his voice. "Perfectly willing to torture a subdued opponent… in cold blood… just for the sake of it, hmm? You're not as different from us… as I thought. Well, do it then… Kill me… just like I killed your father!"

_What-? _Ethan's mind whirled at the implications of the Scion's words. _He... he's James' father's killer?_

"You're lying." James tensed, his eyes narrowing, but yet the crusader's voice wavered. "That… that's impossible! My father died before my eyes!"

"Indeed, boy… and who do you think was the one who finished him off and left him to die bleeding in the rain?" Zabuza positively cackled, completely unfazed by the fact that James literally held his life in his hands. "Even in death, clinging on to the _memories_ of his precious wife and son… I haven't seen a more pathetic warrior than that!"

_No…_ James' eyes hidden underneath his dark bangs, and though his expression was unreadable, his arms were visibly trembling. _He… he's telling the truth… Dad… Dad did die in the rain…_

"Oh, you'd certainly love to hear more, wouldn't you?" Zabuza taunted even further, clearly enjoying every minute of it. "You never found his body after you came back, did you? Right after you abandoned it just to save his precious sword…"

_No… That… that wasn't how it happened…_

"Let me tell you why, boy – it's because I was the one who had the honor of retrieving his body and bringing it back personally to Lord Ergoth," Zabuza was practically chortling with sadistic laughter now. "And thrusting his _head_ on a _spike_ for all to see!'

_Shut up… Just shut up, goddamnit… before I do something I regret…_

The Scion was practically howling with laughter now, and all James could feel and hear was the roiling cloud of rage that consumed his every sense. The crusader's arm tensed… and before he knew it, there was an agonized scream, the Scion had suddenly stopped talking, a wet gurgle interrupting the end of his sentence.

As the red haze obscuring his vision suddenly cleared, showing him crystal clear what lay before him – Zabuza, still pinned to the wall by his throat, with James' right hand shoved clean through his chest, the massive wound surrounded by copious amounts of blood, it slowly dawned upon the crusader that the agonized scream had come from _himself._

_By the Gods… what have I done?_

Amazingly, the Scion was still alive, and he still managed to lock his gaze with James' shocked eyes, his own black orbs conveying but one message. Though the Scion could not speak, the unspoken message in his deriding, taunting gaze, said it all.

_**Do it.**_

Whatever shock and horror James might have experienced at what he was about to do was immediately washed away in a torrent of anger and hatred. His heart cried out for blood; for the Scion to pay for his affronts, for him to be _erased _from the annals of history, wishing for him to be simply just _gone_. In an indignant rage that would have put a Balrog to shame, James ripped his hand out of Zabuza's chest, and with the pain, the agony, the suffering of all the memories of the loss of his father, and Tricia… James took it all, shaped it, focused it, and cast every iota of his killing intent upon Zabuza.

The boiling cauldron of anger that was his head consumed every fibre of his being so thoroughly that he was only vaguely aware of his right eye suddenly contracting painfully, and the more he focused on the Scion… the more the pain grew, until it was a piercing agony on par with his hatred of the enemy before him.

Good. Let the enemy feel the pain as well.

His right eye wept tears of blood, and James threw everything he had at Zabuza.

"_**Amaterasu!"**_

This time, the agonized scream came from the enemy, as jet-black flames suddenly burst to life on Zabuza's body. Screaming in agony as the fires slowly consumed his body, the Scion writhed helplessly on the floor… until his entire being had been burnt to an unrecognizable cinder.

Gasping in exhaustion as the pain in his eye began to fade, James suddenly felt more tired than he had ever been in his life… but even as his knees buckled with inexplicable weakness, he could not shake the feeling that he had just played right into Ergoth's hands.

Right before he toppled backwards, falling unconscious, he had just enough time to realize that the outline of the objects in the workshop appeared slightly more blurred than usual…

* * *

**Kulan Field, Gray's Prairie**

Miles above the forest that Logan stalked through, unbeknownst to the Dragon Knight, the Supreme Chief Gray was watching his every move – indeed, he had been the one who sent Zeno to attack him just now.

Interspersed throughout the forest that Logan now trekked, his army of Grays of all kinds patrolled vigilantly, on the lookout for any sign of him. Guided by their leader's invisible hand, some of the Grays stayed behind in the forest, while the rest of them converged upon his position just a few kilometres east of the forest – in a large clearing at least a mile wide.

As the Grays entered the clearing by the legions, one of the Ultras came up to him and bowed subtly in greeting.

_En Taro Adun, Judicator Aldaris. _The Ultra, clad in a golden cloak instead of the normal red that most Ultras wore, thought to the Supreme Chief Gray. _Might I ask the reason why much of our forces have been pulled back from the forest in search of the human? Surely we would be able to find him faster with all our warriors scouring the woods for him?_

_En Taro Adun, Executor Artanis. _Aldaris replied mentally to his army's general, their thoughts effortlessly heard by each other due to the telepathic link that all Grays shared through the Khala – otherwise known as the Path of Ascension. _Do not fret, for I have a plan. Zeno will do well finding Logan by himself in the forest – we will need all the warriors we have to subdue the human once Zeno has brought him to us._

_Very well, Judicator… _Artanis answered uncertainly. _I hope you are right in that respect. The Templar cast has endured grievous losses in the war against the humans, and our numbers are growing thin._

Turning away, the golden-clad Executor left the Supreme Chief Gray, as Aldaris cast his mind out once more into the forest, reaching for the telepathic link that connected him to Zeno.

_Find the human, and bring him to me. _Aldaris sent wordlessly to the mindless behemoth, and he immediately sensed Zeno's affirmative, the brute moving unquestioningly to follow his orders. _It's time you made yourself useful, unlike the last time you failed us… Tassadar._

As the Gray that used to be known to his cohorts as Tassadar, now only known by his codename of Zeno, slowly began closing on where he knew the human would be, the Supreme Chief Gray simply settled back with a mental grin, and prepared to meet Logan once more.

The Dragon Knight had been moving silently through the forest for a good ten minutes now, following the trail of flattened plant life that had no doubt been left behind by the wreckage of his Vulture, yet he seemed to be getting no closer to his objective.

He had already encountered only a few patrols of Barnard, Zeta, and even Ultra Grays, and had dispatched them quickly and silently, but something felt off about the patrols he had encountered.

For one thing, there ought to have been more of them.

Logan had expected far more Grays to be swarming around the crash site in an attempt to find him, or at least his corpse, to confirm his death at the very least. The Dragon Knight had long ago learned to trust his instincts, and right now his instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong.

_Tch. _The Dragon Knight thought to himself, and hefted himself over another log, keeping his Fairfrozen at the ready. _Could be possible that they're setting up a trap somewhere… But that ain't right. I can't sense any psychic energy signatures, and my suit's sensors aren't picking anything up either._

True enough, the MJOLNIR suit's motion trackers were failing to pick up any additional signatures of movement aside from his own, despite Logan having turned up its detection range to its maximum of a quarter of a mile.

Whatever worries he had about a trap however, faded away as soon as he finally caught sight of a familiar silhouette amongst the trees – sure enough, the wreckage of his Vulture lay on the ground, completely totalled.

But while the hoverbike was completely wrecked, Logan spied that the trunk was still intact… and spilling out of the Vulture's rear were his precious bags of firearms and ammunition.

_Christmas sure comes early in these parts._ Logan let the grin spread unrestrained over his face, and he quickly sprinted forward, abandoning all pretense of stealth in his excitement.

Like a child let loose upon the piles of Christmas presents waiting underneath the tree, Logan practically dove upon his duffel bags of munitions and began digging through them, securing what he would immediately need, followed by what would be nice-to-haves. A C-14 Gauss Rifle immediately went over his shoulder, secured in place by the magnetic clamps of his armour, followed by two M7 sub-machineguns, attaching them to either side of his hips. Spare ammo clips went straight to his ammunition holders, and another pair of M6D Magnum sidearms were secured to his thigh holsters as well.

Just as the Dragon Knight was about to secure a satchel of M9 HE-DP frag grenades, his motion tracker suddenly lit up a contact – a _huge_ one, and it was less then ten metres from his position.

Almost as if on cue, his psychic sense suddenly sprang up again, screaming warnings at him, and Logan could practically _feel_ the massive psychic presence bearing down on him like a freight train.

Eyes widening in shock, the Dragon Knight threw himself to the side barely in time, maintaining his death grip on the satchel of frag grenades he was holding onto.

Just as Logan managed to throw himself out of the way, a gigantic, metallic fist swept through the area he had vacated but a millisecond ago, the blow instead connecting with the twisted metal carcass of the Vulture, and sending it flying into the distance along with the rest of Logan's munitions.

_Damn!_ The Dragon Knight cursed to himself as he quickly rolled back onto his feet, slinging the satchel of grenades around his back. _There goes my rocket launcher…_

But Logan didn't have any time other than that to think. One glance at his assailant was all he needed to confirm his suspicions – indeed, his massive quarry stood before him in all its terrible alien glory, bristling with plated armour and mounted weaponry in more places than Logan could count… and for just a brief, brief moment, Logan wondered who truly was the hunter, and who was the hunted.

In other words, the two foremost words on the Dragon Knight's mind were _Oh Crap._

Logan immediately unlimbered his Gauss Rifle reflexively, backpedalling away from Zeno and blasting away with his gun at full-auto. A fusillade of metal spikes spat forth from the barrel of his rifle as Logan ran backwards as fast as he could, but all of his shots sparked harmlessly off of a honeycombed, blue-white translucent barrier that suddenly sprang up between Zeno and his bullets.

_Damn, hardened psionic shields! _Logan desperately realized as Zeno suddenly lunged forward, and only a last minute dodge to the side spared him a punishing blow that surely would've plowed right through his own energy shielding. _All right, psionic shields cover only against attacks that exceed a certain speed from outside of their protective range. I have to get inside the shield's perimeter somehow… this is obviously going to take a little more firepower than usual!_

Emptying the rest of his clip into Zeno despite the futility of the gesture, Logan tossed aside the now-empty Gauss Rifle and primed a frag grenade, throwing it to the ground just a few feet in front of him. Zeno was much larger than him, so it would take a lot more than a simple jump to clear its height.

It was a desperate gambit, but if it paid off, Logan would be able to bypass Zeno's shielding completely. His left hand shot down to his hip, and snatched the M7 sub-machinegun from its magnetic clamp, while his right immediately went for his Fairfrozen.

Just as Logan began to sprint past the grenade he had just throw at his feet, the Dragon Knight threw himself into a powerful upward leap, its strength and speed magnified tenfold by the circuits of his MJOLNIR armour. Launched several feet into the air just past his grenade, Logan managed to clear the lethal blast radius just in time, so that instead of blowing him to pieces, the grenade's detonation just gave him a very strong, very hot _push…_

And propelled him several feet further into the air, right straight at Zeno's head. His own shields had taken very little damage from the blast, and the Dragon Knight easily evaded the clumsy swipes that Zeno made at him as he passed overhead.

Just as he reached the massive cyborg's back, Logan's Fairfrozen suddenly stabbed outward, and embedded itself in one of Zeno's massive shoulder blades, right through a gap in the massive plates of armour that covered its body.

Maintaining his death grip on his spear's shaft, Logan swung himself inward, and landed solidly with both feet planted on Zeno's shoulder. A powerful twist tore open the gap in Zeno's armour even further, and Logan shoved the barrel of his M7 inside the gap, depressing the trigger and letting fly with a barrage of caseless shredder rounds at point blank range.

The alien cyborg roared in pained protest, and it immediately swung itself around in a wide arc, arms flailing. Logan shifted out of the way just in time to avoid a massive, flying fist, and continued firing into the gap, screaming in a berserker's rage. Just as his magazine clicked empty, a second fist suddenly came bearing down on him so fast that the Dragon Knight simply couldn't react in time.

A gigantic hammer blow smashed right into him with such force that Logan's grip on his Fairfrozen, enhanced as it was, was completely ripped in twain, and both Logan and his Fairfrozen were ripped right from their mounted position on Zeno's body.

The Dragon Knight's world went spinning as he was catapulted straight into the air, tumbling end over end. There was a sudden _crunch! _as Logan suddenly came to a jarring halt, and the Dragon Knight dimly noted his half-depleted shields, and the tree trunk behind him that had almost been shattered underneath the weight of his MJOLNIR armour as he reflexively clambered back onto his feet.

There were several menacing popping sounds from Logan's joints as he got to his feet, and the Dragon Knight actually winced in pain. _Gah, shit! Dislocated joints, bastard did more internal damage than I thought…_

Casting a quick look around, Logan noticed that his Fairfrozen lay fallen on the ground just a handful of feet away, and also the fact that Zeno was roaring menacingly at him, its arms raised and… was that a pair of phase disruptor cannons coming out of its wrists?

The Dragon Knight's eyes widened and he threw himself to the side in a dodging roll barely in time. A blinding barrage of blue-white plasma bolts blasted across the spot he had occupied but a split-second ago, and his armour's temperature gauge spiked, showing a two thousand degree increase in ambient temperature. Logan's shields flared as bluish fire splashed across him, and when the light faded, the ground upon which the plasma projectiles had impacted had been reduced to nothing but cracked, glassy craters.

Coming out of his roll right next to his Fairfrozen, Logan immediately snatched his weapon up from the ground, holding it in a ready stance. Already he had lost his gauss rifle as well as one of his SMGs, and all he had left in addition to his spear was his one remaining SMG, as well as the pair of M6D pistols still strapped to his thighs – his Fairfrozen was as reliable a presence as he could count on now.

Apparently rather pissed off that its phase disruptor barrage had missed, the alien cyborg before him gave a deafening roar that rang painfully in Logan's ears, even with his suit's sound dampeners. Scowling, the Dragon Knight defiantly raised his Fairfrozen, and gave another, almost equally loud bellow in response to Zeno's challenge, sprinting forward with his spear raised.

At the very same time, Zeno began charging forward as well, its fists crackling with bluish-white bolts of barely contained psychic energy. Bareknuckled fists came up against frozen spear shaft mere moments later, and a frantic melee was joined.

It was a ferocious, but brief battle, however. As swift and receptive as Logan was in dodging Zeno's attacks and attempting to counter, none of his thrusts and stabs even came close to penetrating Zeno's armour, always bouncing off harmlessly the massive plates that covered the cyborg's body.

Zeno, on the other hand, had a far easier time keeping the pressure on Logan. Moving with a speed that belied its massive size, Zeno assaulted the Dragon Knight with swing after swing, crackling bolts of psychic energy following each punch with such potency that even the _wake_ of each blow was enough to cause Logan's shields to flare with their every passing, draining their strength bit by bit.

The two literally fought each other to a standstill for several minutes… and then, in the blink of an eye, the tide of battle shifted. Zeno finally managed to connect a solid hit on Logan's chest plate, ramming right through his shields. Grunting in surprise as the blow connected, Logan was sent flying straight into the ground a few feet from Zeno as his shields were instantly depleted by the sheer force of the impact.

Lightning surged through every nerve through his body, sending his muscles into painful spasms, and Logan bit back a scream of pain. Struggling against his involuntarily twitching muscles, Logan struggled to get back onto his feet, but before he could even move an inch, a powerful metallic fist closed around his suit's neckpiece, and he felt himself being lifted up into the air as though he weighed no lighter than a doll.

Opening an eye that had been squeezed shut from pain, Logan saw that Zeno had him held up in the air by his throat with but a single hand, and the cyborg was looking at him with an unreadable expression, its eyes completely blank save for an overriding fury that seemed to be directed at everything around it.

"Well, what the hell are you waiting for?" Logan rasped out, practically spitting his words at his foe. "Finish it!"

What the cyborg did next was completely unexpected. Raising its other hand, Zeno instead held it open as bluish sparks of energy began to play around it, and before Logan could brace himself for an incoming blow, there was a rush of movement – as though he was being brought through a tunnel at extremely high speeds – and everything around him turned into a blur.

There was an indescribable cacophony of sound, an incomprehensible rush of colours, and as the torrent of stimuli ended, Logan gasped and blinked looking around dazedly.

Zeno still had its fist wrapped around his throat, that was for sure, but other than that, the Dragon Knight was still quite unsure as to what had just happened… until he saw what stood before him.

Or rather, who, because as the Dragon Knight saw it, it could only have been described as 'one hell of an old geezer of a Gray'.

_Greetings, Logan._ The mouthless alien's voice rang mentally in Logan's mind, and its eyes curved inwards in the Gray's equivalent of a smile. _Long time no see_.

* * *

A/N: You know the drill.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own MapleStory, or any other references or shoutouts to other series that appear in this story. This is a work of fiction, any resemblance of characters or events to real-life persons or events is purely coincidental.

* * *

A/N: Well guys, sorry it took so long to get this one up, so I made it somewhat longer than average to compensate for it. You'll find quite a lot of story progression here and not so much meaningless action, something that I'd taken a months-long break just to regain my writing spirit enough that I could actually churn something like this out.

Well, without further ado, here is the next chapter of WEAPON X.

* * *

**The Marauders: Episode IV**

**WEAPON X**

* * *

**Kulan Fields, Gray's Prairie**

_Greetings, Logan._ The mouthless alien's voice rang mentally in Logan's mind, and its eyes curved inwards in the Gray's equivalent of a smile. _Long time no see_.

_Oh, just perfect… _Logan thought to himself. _The big cheese…_

"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" The Dragon Knight spat out defiantly, still struggling futilely against Zeno's iron grip. "You'll excuse me if your face doesn't ring any bells, because you look like you were still around when Bera itself was wearing diapers."

To Logan's surprise, the old Gray before him did not react with offense, and instead laughed a deep, throaty, mental laugh, brimming with mirth.

_Ah, still as violent and vulgar as ever, I see. You're no different from the time I saw you as a child. _The Gray's voice continued ringing in Logan's head, and the Dragon Knight raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Excuse me?" He asked sardonically, quite disbelieving of what he was hearing. "I don't recall meeting a muppet audition reject ever before in my life."

_Well, I'm not surprised that you don't remember me, Logan. _The Gray said in an obviously bemused tone, and Logan was starting to get a very bad vibe about where this conversation was headed. _After all, it was _I _who erased your memories in the first place._

_He's the one who- what in the hell! _"What the hell are you talking about, old man?" Logan snapped, his eyes narrowing. Just what did this old geezer in front of him know…?

Almost infuriatingly, the old Gray's eyes simply slanted in mirth, and its condescending laughter echoed throughout the Dragon's Knight mind. _My, my, you really **don't** remember, do you, Logan?_ _Well then, allow me to refresh your memory…_

The old Gray made a gesture, and Zeno abruptly released its hold on Logan's neck. Coughing and gasping for air as the sudden pressure on his windpipe was released, the Dragon Knight fell to the ground, landing unceremoniously in a heap.

_You were nothing but a nondescript citizen of Ludibrium when we first found you._The old Gray's voice continued to sound through Logan's mind, even as the winded warrior struggled to catch his breath and find his spear again. _Homeless, nameless, naught but a feral child. An unfortunate orphan whose parents had either abandoned you at birth, or were unlucky enough to die within the first few years of your life._

"My parents…" Logan muttered, clenching a fist. _Damnit, he's right. I have no memories of my parents… at all._

_You were not missed by the city even after we… relieved them of your presence, _The old Gray continued._ But thanks to you, we now had the first human test subject of our very own supersoldier project, our counter to the UNSC's SPARTANs – Project WEAPON._

"Project WEAPON… and let me guess, Zeno's a product of that project?" Logan snapped as he finally located his Fairfrozen on the ground nearby and snatched it up, standing in a ready stance but stopping himself from attacking – he wasn't about to pass up on the wealth of information the old Gray was giving to him now.

_There were nine previous failures in Project WEAPON before you were brought in as an augmentation subject – we were puzzled by the causes of the previous failures, so we decided to change our test subject instead of our testing procedures. With the similarities between Gray and human physiology, we believed that we would be able to discover what went wrong with the procedures… and we were right. _The Chief Gray continued with his explanation, almost completely unconcerned with the fact that Logan had managed to rearm himself, though Zeno was already snarling and beginning to fidget.

_You were given the code-name WEAPON X, to signify that you were the tenth subject of Project WEAPON. We erased your memories, and kept you sedated. We set you through procedures to train you to be obedient, to perform instructions without hesitation – the perfect soldier. All this was tested upon you first to discover why the previous nine Grays had failed to accept the procedures. But the culmination of it all was the augmentation procedure meant to transform a Gray into a WEAPON._

"Augmentation procedure…" The Dragon Knight whispered, his knuckles clenching involuntarily even as his entire body began to bunch up uncomfortably. This old Gray… there was a truth resonating in his words that even Logan could not deny. Could this… truly have been what happened to him?

_The procedure was flawlessly executed on you._ The Chief Gray's voice continued to echo through Logan's mind, even as thoughts and questions began to whirl through the warrior's mind._ Your body accepted the augmentations without complications, and we gained the knowledge needed to make the entire process work on a Gray. But you gained something we had not expected – a hardened mind, capable of casting off even our most potent drugs and psychic dampeners._

_You tore yourself free from your bonds. You became the personification of animalistic rage. You beat a bloody path out of the facility we kept you in. Nothing we threw at you could stop you. You left a trail of bloody destruction in your wake… and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. _You_ were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen… and with your help, you made WEAPON XI possible._

Clenching his teeth in disbelief, Logan shifted his stance again, and levelled his Fairfrozen again at the old Chief Gray, despite the intimidating snarls that Zeno was giving off.

"Nice tale, Gramps. But I don't remember nothing about it." The Dragon Knight growled, mentally preparing himself to draw upon the mana necessary to perform a Dragon Roar. Zeno and the old geezer might not be completely affected by it, but it would stun them and buy him enough time to make a quick escape to get his bearings back – the leverage in this situation was completely one-sided, and it didn't take a genius to figure out which side the odds swung in favor of.

But against his expectations again, the old Gray simply chuckled, and raised a hand, pointing two fingers in Logan's general direction. _Well then… if you do not believe my words, then I can simply just show you firsthand, what you did to the WEAPON X facility in your escape._

"What are you-" The warrior didn't even get to finish his sentence. The Chief Gray made a gesture, and suddenly Logan fell to the ground, crying out in pain as he clutched at his head.

It felt as though two red-hot iron pokers were being pressed into his skull, a sharp, piercing pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. A scream of agony ripped itself forth from his throat, but that soon died away as a sudden rush of sounds and images abruptly barrelled forth from the crevasses of his mind.

The Dragon Knight caught the sensation of surgical tools slicing into his body, so many machines and intravenous tubes plugged into almost every imaginable spot on his skin. He recalled sprinting through bare, winding corridors, a hideous helmet-like device strapped to his head, force-feeding him images and sounds and forcing him to react accordingly to them.

His breath was harsh in his throat, and his blood pounded through his heart and body, racing through his veins and arteries. He remembered sinking psionic blades into virtual targets dictated to him through the device, disembowelling them without a shred of hesitance. He remembered sinking energy daggers up to their hafts in living victims, having thrown them from yards away with pinpoint accuracy. And through it all the sound of his mind kept on repeating itself, the enraged, feral roar of a caged animal, desperate to escape from its captivity.

But as the sounds and images continued to assault him, Logan slowly staggered to his feet, a hand still clutching at his head as he continued to endure the barrage of memories.

After a decade's worth of images, the Dragon Knight seeing his child-like body fast-forwarding its way into maturity, Logan finally began to recognise the final images coming to him – the memories of his escape.

The Dragon Knight remembered how he had, upon the night of awakening from his augmentations, had torn his way out of the immersion vat they had contained him within in a frenzied rage, roaring like a beast that had finally broken free of its bonds as plugs and tubes from all over his body were snapped off.

Logan remembered that he had murdered the two scientist Grays that were in the same room as him with his bare hands, striking them so hard with his fists that by the time he was done with them, they were nothing but bloody pulps on the floor. They had tried to seal the facility in a complete lockdown, but nothing was to stop Weapon X from escaping.

Logan had literally beaten the door down, all ten inches of durasteel and titanium. Bleeding from over a dozen places on his body, Logan had torn apart the first Gray guard he saw, and stole the alien's wrist bracers, using the training they had forcefully imparted on him to carve a bloody path out of the science facility with his stolen psionic blades.

But the thing that unnerved Logan the most was the _emotions _that came with the images. He remembered how he had murdered the Grays that had kept him imprisoned for a good decade, and he remembered how he tore them apart like _animals,_ like _he_ was an animal himself…

And he remembered _enjoying_ it.

Shaking his head in disgust and appal, Logan forced himself back upright and focused his attention on the Chief Gray, despite the now-massive headache that he was experiencing. His memories being returned was one thing… but he was still in the presence of a very dangerous enemy, and surrounded on all sides by nothing but hostiles.

If anything, the implications of his new revelations had to wait until he was in a much safer location.

"So… you gave me back all my memories… If you didn't come here to kill me, then why did you bring me here? Just to remind me of what I truly am?" The Dragon Knight said through gritted teeth, picking up his fallen Fairfrozen again as he stared warily at the old alien, whose expression was now unreadable.

_Well, Logan, I merely wanted you to see what you had made possible. _The Supreme Chief Gray's mental voice rang through Logan's mind once more. _You were the final piece of the puzzle, Logan… you made WEAPON XI possible._

"So then… what the hell is weapon eleven supposed to be, then?" Logan asked expectantly, but the Chief Gray didn't answer.

Instead, the old alien raised a hand and gestured at Zeno, to which the cybernetic behemoth immediately began to stride forward towards Logan, cracking its metallic knuckles.

For the briefest of moments, Logan had time to wonder what the hell he had gotten himself into before a massive fist slammed right through his shields and sent the Dragon Knight flying, turning his entire world black.

* * *

As the Dragon Knight slowly faded into obscurity in the distance, Zeno growled in satisfaction, and turned to its master, awaiting its next orders.

_He will undoubtedly survive that fall – Zeno, you fool, need you have struck with so much force that you immediately sent Logan back from whence you had brought him to us fro?_. Aldaris thought in frustration to himself as he lamented how Zeno had oversimplified his orders to destroy the Dragon Knight as swiftly as possible.

Turning to face the rest of the Grays gathered, Aldaris extended his mind throughout the field and mentally broadcast his orders out to all of the Grays present in the field, Zeno included. _Scour the forest and bring that human back here! Alive if possible, but I want his body intact for further study after he has been collected!_

Moving as one as they acknowledged their leader's order, the entire army of extraterrestrials mobilized at once, with Zeno at their head, as they crashed right into the forests of Omega Sector in pursuit of Logan.

* * *

**_Somewhere, in utter darkness…_**

_He floated within absolute darkness, a blackness so pervasive it permeated everything it touched. He raised a hand in front of him – he saw nothing but blackness._

_Time had no meaning here – he knew not how long he had been floating. It could have been an eternity… it could have a few seconds._

_But slowly, the darkness began to recede, replaced by the comforting glow of dawn. As he blinked his eyes, slowly adapting to the light, he began to see the clouds surrounding him… and before him, the female figure that was floating serenely, her back to him._

_She was a vision of perfection, just as he remembered her. Clad in pristine white robes, her auburn locks flowing smoothly, river-like over her slim, curved figure, angels paled in comparison next to her._

_But as she slowly began to turn, he saw that something was wrong._

_Her visage was twisted in sorrow, her eyes betraying a pain unlike any other on this earth. Tears flowed forth from her eyes, an indistinct, glittering stream, and almost instinctively, he immediately reached out to wipe them away._

**"Tricia…"**

_And the moment she heard his voice, the sorrow from her visage disappeared, immediately replaced by a look of relief, her eyes widening in realization. Her gaze locking onto his, she smiled, and he reached out for her._

**"I failed to save you…."**

_The regret and anguish in his voice was clear as day. But as though that didn't matter at all, she simply smiled at him forgivingly, and extended her hand towards him._

_His heart leaping to his throat, he all but lunged forward, reaching out with his own… and the moment his fingers touched hers, her flesh began to disintegrate, disappearing into hundreds of tiny motes of light._

_Gasping, he could only stare in shock as her entire body was consumed before him by the light. As her head, the last of her, began to disappear, the very last words that she remembered whispering to him resounded throughout his very being._

"James… Thank you…"

_Shaking his head in denial, he made to lunge forward to grab a hold of what was still there, but suddenly the darkness returned, binding his arms and legs in place, leaving him to struggle futilely against his bonds._

**"Tricia… Tricia!" **_He screamed, pulling uselessly at the darkness that held at him like iron manacles. _

**"I swear it… I swear I'm gonna get us out of here! _Together_, Tricia!"**

_Sobbing in grief as the last vestiges of her presence faded away, he was alone once more, floating within absolute darkness, his screams echoing uselessly throughout the endless void._

**"_TRICIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"_**

* * *

**Marauder's HQ**

He awoke to a world of pain, a piercing agony assaulting him right behind both of his eyeballs. As he returned to the world of the waking, James Price Cyrus groaned in pain as he crashed right into the worst migraine he had ever experienced in his life.

"Ah, you're finally awake." The crusader heard a familiar voice speak from his right, though he could not see who the speaker was due to the fact that his eyes were scrunched completely shut due to the pounding in his head.

"Painkillers. Now." The exhausted warrior croaked out in a rasp as he extended a hand, and James heard a chuckle before he felt a glass being pressed into his hand. Without a second thought, James immediately opened his mouth and sloshed the liquid in – the cool, crystal-clear taste of a chilled power elixir ran down his throat, and the crusader let himself enjoy the little piece of heaven.

The rest of the glass immediately followed suit in several gulps, and James finally set it down, letting out a loud gasp of relief as he felt the throbbing in his head lessen significantly.

"Shit… what happened back there, Hiroshi?" The crusader said as he attempted to sit up, only to fall back into bed as the world suddenly began to spin around him. "Whoa… shit, what the hell was that?"

"You overexerted yourself, James." The crusader heard the Outlaw's voice coming from somewhere to his right. "That technique that you cast required far much more mana than your body had at the time – it drew directly from your life force instead. Your body had sustained incredible damage when we rushed you to the infirmary – your eyes in particular had taken a bad hit. We healed the damage as best we could, but your eyesight will still be a bit blurred."

"Long as I can still see where I'm going, I'm fine with that." James grunted as he finally managed to creak his eyes open a crack – true to Hiroshi's word, his vision was a tad fuzzy, but he was still able to make out minute details if he focused enough.

Grunting as he swung his legs off the bed, James pushed himself to his feet… and wobbled woozily for a few seconds, grabbing a hold of the bedside table immediately to steady himself.

"I wouldn't be coming out of bed just yet if I were you, James," The crusader heard Hiroshi say in a reprimanding tone. "The power elixir still needs time to do its work."

"I'll be fine, I'm just gonna walk it off." James grunted in reply, forcing himself back onto his feet and ignoring the spinning in his head. "What's more important right now is, what the heck did I do back there that cost me so much mana?"

"You awakened your Mangekyou Sharingan, that's what you did." Hiroshi stated gravely, and for just a moment, James stopped breathing purely out of shock.

"I did what?"

Sighing, Hiroshi walked over to a nearby table in the infirmary and picked up a tray that James had failed to notice earlier, placing it in the crusader's hands.

"Remember that Scion you fought earlier, Zabuza? This is all that's left of him right now." The Outlaw stated, and James stared wide-eyed down at the pile of ashes that lay on the tray in his hands, a pile no bigger than his thumb.

"Holy smokes…" The crusader whispered in horror as the memories slowly came back to him, and he sat back on the bed, his eyes wide with realization. "I remember what I did…"

"Damn right you do." Hiroshi said curtly, taking the tray from James' hands and setting it down. "James, you of all people should know how dangerous using the Mangekyou Sharingan is. Yet I saw you using no less than _two_ Mangekyou techniques, back to back. _Do you have a death wish_?"

"I know, Hiroshi, I know…" James muttered regretfully as he buried his face in his left hand. "Gods, what have I done…"

The crusader could scarcely believe himself – from the history texts that Hiroshi had gathered, what the Marauders knew about James' eyes was that there existed a level beyond that of the ordinary Sharingan. A level of power unheard of in modern Bera, but also one with deadly cost: the Mangekyou Sharingan.

According to the history texts, the most commonly used method of forcibly obtaining the Mangekyou had been through the murder of one's best friend, but apparently the trauma of losing Tricia had been enough to allow James access to its power, though he couldn't truly ascend his Sharingan until it had fully matured… and it did so right in the middle of the earlier fight.

The two stood in silence for a while, Hiroshi leaving the crusader to stew upon the implications of his actions. After a moment, Hiroshi broke the silence again.

"There is another thing about the attack. Apparently this was to be more than an abduction – their assault on us was partially a diversion. While we were busy fighting Zabuza, the rest of them were infiltrating the rest of our headquarters."

Exasperation clear in his expression, James let his arms fall slack, and he stared up at Hiroshi, praying that the news the outlaw had was not what he thought it was.

"Please tell me it's not what I think it is."

"It is, James." Hiroshi said pensively. "They've stolen Tricia's body. It's presumably back inside the Sharenian ruins with Ergoth now."

Almost immediately, the fatigue and pain that riddled the crusader's body disappeared, replaced by a burning sensation that crawled underneath his skin – something that felt too akin to the rage he had felt when he had cast the technique that had murdered Zabuza in cold blood.

James' fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. With barely controlled movements, the crusader reached out with a trembling hand and forced himself upright off the bed.

"Hiroshi… I need the strongest calming draught you have. Right now. Before I run out of this room and storm Ergoth's stronghold right here, right this moment." The crusader spoke, his lips trembling with the visible amount of effort he was putting into keeping himself under control.

Understanding how close James was to breaking, Hiroshi hurried to a nearby cupboard and pulled it open, grabbing a bottle of clear fluid and immediately handing it James.

Almost immediately the crusader uncorked the bottle and downed the draught, gulping it down as fast as he could. Within seconds the bottle was empty, and the crusader set it down on his bedside table, sighing in relief as his hands began to stop shaking.

"Do you need a moment?" The pirate asked as James slowly calmed down, but to his surprise James shook his head.

"No. I know what I have to do next." The crusader stated, and got off the bed with surprising vigor, walking past Hiroshi and heading straight for the door. "I have to go visit his grave."

"_His_ grave?" Hiroshi quipped, turning to face the departing warrior. "You sure you wanna go there? It's a bad time now to be going out there alone… Ergoth's assassins are prowling this land, no doubt about that. And you're still vulnerable to psychic attack from him."

James stopped at the doorway for only a moment, and turned his head slightly towards Hiroshi to indicate he was listening.

"I'll deal with it when it comes to it, Hiroshi. But I have to see him. Now."

Realizing that the crusader was already set, the pirate merely shrugged nonchalantly. "All right, if you insist. Ethan is on watch right now, and I'll be in the library doing research in the meantime."

When he had finished speaking, James didn't reply, but instead left immediately, soon disappearing down the corridor, leaving Hiroshi alone in the infirmary.

_Well, don't say I didn't warn you, James._ Hiroshi thought with pursed lips as he considered what he knew about the crusader's bloodline. _I have a bad feeling about this. But_ _whatever you find over there, I hope it helps, because I don't think you're going to like what I found out about Ergoth while you were unconscious._

* * *

**An hour later, in the West Domain of Perion…**

The wind audibly whistled about the clifftops of Perion, softly rustling the small batch of flowers that lay resting atop a peak that overlooked the warrior town.

Amongst the flowers lay a sword, flat on its side, its blade rusted and faded with age and neglect. But even still amongst the corrosion and cracks that beset the metal, the red jewel that lay embedded in the centre of its hilt still gleamed brightly, the one piece that stood in firm defiance to the bleak state of the rest of the blade.

The sword lay there amongst the grass and stalks, softly surrounded by their gentle touch as the flowers swayed in the wind… and soon, the gentle dirge of the wind was soon drowned out by a distant roar – a roar that steadily grew in volume.

For several seconds, the roar grew louder, and louder, and then suddenly died down to a low growl, as within moments, a sleek black motorcycle had pulled over a few yards away from the batch of flowers.

The growl of the motorcycle's engine was suddenly cut off as the rider cut the power to its engine, and there was an abrupt audible shifting of gears as a slot suddenly popped out from the bike's side, popping out the hilt of a Heaven's Gate.

A gauntleted hand clamped down on the greatsword's hilt, quickly sheathing it over its owner's back, and there were several quick footsteps as booted feet began their stride towards the sword fallen amongst the flowers.

Just a pace away from the grass, the footsteps suddenly stopped, and an armoured knee knelt down on the ground, the gauntleted hand placing its palm atop the grip of the fallen sword's handle, picking it back up. The blade was briefly raised, and then there was a sharp stabbing sound as the sword was plunged tip-first back in front of the batch of flowers it had fallen amongst, dirt and fallen petals sent scattering in the wind by the force of the impact.

The gauntleted hand's grip remained upon the sword's handle for several moments before it hesitantly let go, and James Price Cyrus slowly stepped back from the Devil's Sunrise that marked the spot where his father had died before his eyes.

The young warrior was silent for several moments, contemplating the marker before him, and began to finally speak in a low murmur.

"'I will live on for you as well.'" James muttered in melancholy, never taking his eyes off the sword that his father had previously wielded, alongside the Heaven's Gate that now rested across his back. "You know that's what I had decided…"

With a grim expression, James closed his eyes as the memories began to flow back…

* * *

_"So you wanna be a Hero? Heheh, hang in there, junior." Jake Giles Cyrus said approvingly as he reached out and affectionately ruffled his ambitious ten-year-old son's hair._

* * *

_"Hey!" Jake shook his son's shoulders as James lay on his back on the ground, the fourteen-year-old youth completely exhausted and covered in bruises. "You feeling all right?"_

* * *

_"Say…" The bruised, beaten crusader said to the barely conscious James that he now carried over his back. "So what are you gonna do now when we finally get back to Perion?"_

* * *

_The grin never left his father's face as he locked eyes with James, and Jake continued his long trek onward, holding his swordsman son upright over his back as he continued the journey home._

_"We're buddies, right?"_

* * *

_A cramp in his leg finally forced the crusader to a stop, and Jake stopped in his tracks, taking a moment to rest._

_A single breath inwards though, and Jake was good to go. Breathing in deeply the fresh mountain air, the crusader closed his eyes, and relished the feeling of closure._

_At long last, the battle was over once more, and he and his son were free to live on with their lives again._

_And the crusader was about to take another step forward when an arrow suddenly whizzed by his head, whistling past with barely inches to spare._

_Cursing, Jake immediately sprinted towards the nearest dead tree and ducked behind it for cover. _Shit! I didn't expect them to find us so quickly… I have to get behind the rocks!

_Shifting and tightening his grip on the barely conscious youth on his back, Jake held on tightly to his son as he prepared for the sprint of his life._

_"Hang on James, we're going now!"_

* * *

_With a rasping gasp as the stitch in his side flared again, Jake came to a stop just behind a massive outcropping of rocks, just enough to give him some reprieve from their pursuers._

_Slowly, he set his son back down on his feet, and guided the nearly comatose youth to a sitting position resting against the rocks._

_With a silly grin as he gazed upon his son, he shook James on the shoulder a few times for good measure, and held back a snigger as the young swordsman slumped over to the side and muttered something about needing five more minutes._

Five minutes is all I'll need…_ Jake thought to himself wryly, and he got to his feet, setting his hand on the handle of his Devil's Sunrise as he turned around and began to walk off, ready to face his destiny._

_And unbeknownst to him, just as he had turned his back, James had begun to stir, and caught sight of his father just as he had begun to leave._

_Squinting against the impossibly bright light, James began to reach out a hand slowly, silently pleading for his father not to go, and the young swordsman watched helplessly as Jake Giles Cyrus slowly disappeared into the whiteness…_

* * *

_"My dreams… My pride…"_

* * *

_Slowly, with a weakened, bloodstained hand, Jake raised the handle of his Heaven's Gate upwards, gently placing it in the hands of a shocked, stunned James Cyrus._

_"They're yours now." Jake said, a smile on his face, despite the rain dripping into his eyes, despite the blood that flowed freely from his wounds and down his face, despite the numerous arrows sticking from his body, and despite the massive, bleeding hole in his chest._

_With the knowledge that death was moments away from claiming him, Jake released the handle of his Heaven's Gate into his son's grip, and went on into the light with a satisfied smile._

_"James… You are going to be…"_

* * *

_The crusader finally let his head roll back, hitting the soft, rain-soaked ground beneath him as his eyes finally closed, and James was alone on the Perion clifftop, his screams of grief echoing hollowly in the wind as the rain continued to fall._

* * *

**_"… my living legacy."_**

* * *

"Back then, I swore that I would never forget." James murmured, his head bowed to the sword that represented everything that he could remember of his father. "But… I…"

The crusader hesitated there, the words stuck in his throat. How, oh how to convey his current predicament to his father here?

Cursing his weakness, James clenched his fists as he grit his teeth and struggled to find the words. Back then, he had made a promise to inherit his father's will and power, to do his father's memory proud – yet now, he did not even have the power to save Tricia from Ergoth's grip, how could he possibly do honor to his father's memory like this?

And then there was still the matter of his recently-awakened Mangekyou to deal with. Deciding that that would make at least something good to start on, the crusader opened his mouth to try to explain to his father, when suddenly a spike of pain stabbed into his head – crying out in pain as the sudden attack caught him off guard, James collapsed to his knees on the ground, kneeling before his father's sword.

The molten spike of pain lodged in his head pounded again and again, a burning piledriver that drove out all other sensations and left nothing registering on his senses but burning, pounding pain – and throughout the entire experience he could hear a deep, thundering voice resounding through his mind.

**Stop pretending to mourn… **It said, as James struggled to open his eyes, and immediately cringed as his Sharingan flared to life involuntarily – despite the agony overriding his senses, the crusader immediately knew that his now hated nemesis' hand was at work here.

**… nor is there any need for this fabricated fit of frustration**… The voice continued to thunder in his head, and James could _hear_ the condescension in it. Struggling against the pain, the warrior attempted to rebel against Ergoth's influence and get back up onto his feet… and immediately collapsed onto his side as his legs gave out beneath him.

Gasping for air as the pain consumed him, James writhed helplessly on the ground as his vision slowly faded, the blackness returning to consume him.

**… because, brother…**

**… you are nothing more…**

**… than a lowly snake.**

* * *

**Gray's Prairie, Omega Sector**

As the light slowly returned to his world, Logan John Shepard shook his head in bleariness as he dazedly blinked his eyes, trying to determine exactly where he was again.

The Dragon Knight slowly tried wriggling his toes and fingers, trying to determine if he still possessed all of his digits, and sighed in relief as he realized that everything was still in working order.

Gingerly picking himself up from the ground where he lay, Logan winced as he realized just how many destroyed trees he had left in his wake. Astonishingly, throughout his entire literal crash course through the forest, the BFG had somehow managed to stay clamped onto the magnetic holders on the back of his suit – the same went for the pair of M6D pistols and single SMG still strapped to his hips and thigh.

Whatever he had in the way of ammo though, was dismal – his entire combat harness had been ripped away, and whatever rounds he still had on him were what he carried within the loaded clips of his weapons.

Glancing around, the Dragon Knight spotted his Fairfrozen lying fallen just a few feet away, yet another stroke of blind luck, and Logan thanked the heavens as he sprinted forward and quickly recovered his fallen weapon.

A quick check revealed that the weapon was roughly unmarked – a few pits and scratches here and there, but nothing that wasn't expected from a routine mission. Repairs and maintenance could always come later at the Marauders' HQ.

Slinging the spear across his back just under the BFG, Logan snatched up his single remaining SMG from his thigh holster and slid the mag out to perform an ammunition check – verifying that the magazine was indeed full and ready, the ex-soldier reinserted the magazine into the SMG and racked the charging handle, chambering a round.

A sudden rustle of movement from behind caught Logan's attention, and his motion tracker lit up on his HUD, showing a quartet of red dots just twenty-five metres behind his position, one flitting around much faster than the other three which were slowly travelling towards his position in a straight line. Realizing that he was a sitting duck in the open, Logan quickly darted towards the nearest tree log that had the most plant growth, flattening himself against it.

They came into sight much sooner than he'd anticipated – at first, a Zeta Gray zipped right into the clearing, keeping aloft via its signature levitation, followed just a few moments later by two Barnard Grays and a single Ultra.

_Just one Ultra?_ Logan thought to himself, smirking. _This'll be a piece of cake._

The Dragon Knight kept completely still, melding completely into the foliage as the Grays moved past him, totally unaware of his presence…. and just as the two Barnards walked past him, their Ultra superior directly behind them, Logan struck.

The Grays never even knew what hit them – as far as High Templar Ultra Karass was concerned, all he saw was a green blur that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, immediately flooring the two Barnard Zealots in front of him with one blow each. The two zealots went down in a flash, their personal psionic shields flaring uselessly as whatever hit them ploughed through almost effortlessly.

Then as their assailant finally came to a stop, Karass caught just a brief glimpse of it – the green-armored human that Judicator Aldaris had ordered them to find and bring to him. Apparently it had immediately disabled both the Barnards with him by delivering bare-handed blows, as not even the large frozen spear that it carried across its back was being used.

Rearing back his right arm, Karass summoned the might of the Khala that he possessed, and channelled it into a miniature psionic storm that was contained within his palm.

_Burn, heretic!_ The High Templar shouted as he thrust forward the storm that he held within his hand, and blasted it in the human's direction. _I channel the light of the Khala!_

But with unnatural speed, the armoured soldier sidestepped the majority of the blast, just allowing but the tiniest of grazes, the psionic lightning of the blast splashing uselessly over a golden shimmering barrier that surrounded him.

Up above, High Templar Zeta Telos had spotted the ruckus and was visibly preparing himself to unleash a barrage of psionic blasts – however the human, unexpectedly, somehow managed to spot the airborne High Templar and immediately snatched up one of its firearms from its thigh holster and released a barrage of gunfire at Telos, forcing the Zeta to release control over the energy he was harnessing and move, dodging and weaving through the air as bullets pinged off his psionic shield.

But before Karass could even blink, the human was suddenly in front of him, delivering punches at a rate that the High Templar didn't think humans were even capable of achieving. His own personal psionic shields weathered the beating admirably, but they were failing quickly – if he did not do something soon, the human's blows would soon break through.

Throwing himself backwards, Karass focused all of his psionic might upon the individual before him, and hammered it down with the decisiveness of a lightning strike – the human reeled as though physically struck, and the golden barrier surrounding it shimmered again, this time much more strongly.

In a flash though, the human recovered, but Karass had seen all he needed to see – his Templar training had allowed him to spot that the barrier, protective as it still was, had been visibly strained as it had weathered his Feedback assault.

_We are the blades of Aiur – we stand as one!_ The High Templar suddenly heard a mental shout, and he rejoiced his brethren's return to the battle – the two zealots that their assailant had floored at the beginning had finally recovered themselves, and were rejoining the fight, as depleted as their psionic shields were. _Our fury is boundless!_

The two low-ranked Templar charged forward, psionic blades flaring forth from the bracers on their wrists, and they slashed at the armoured human, their psychic voices roaring. But with impossible dexterity, the human evaded their blows, twisting around the first zealot's strike and slamming his entire right arm into the Gray's neck in a Lariat manoeuvre, instantly flooring it and shattering its spinal cord.

The second zealot stabbed forward with its own blades, and the human caught the Gray's arm, twisting it around and placing the zealot into an arm lock before violently reversing it and essentially tearing the Gray's arm completely free of its socket.

The zealot's dying scream echoed throughout the clearing for just a second before the human grabbed the Gray's neck and snapped it, resounding through even Telos' and Karass' minds, and the two High Templar redoubled their efforts to bring the human down.

There was a sudden blur forward, and Karass suddenly found himself with a gauntleted fist buried in his gut, his shields just barely surviving the force of the blow. His own body recoiled backwards from the force of the punch, nearly folding in half, and Karass couldn't even react as another armoured fist slammed into his chin in an uppercut, snapping his head upward as the human shouted a word in his own language that Karass did not comprehend, but understood enough that it sounded vaguely like "_Shoryuken"._

Desperate for some breathing space, the High Templar activated his own psionic blade on his right bracer and swung his arm forward, attempting to at least force his assailant backward. But before his arm had even begun to move, a vice-like grip suddenly crushed his wrist bracer, and Karass found his right arm completely immobilized as the human held it at his side with ungodly strength.

There was the sensation of a thin barrel-like object being jammed into his abdomen, and suddenly an entire series of rapid, staccato impacts slammed against what remained of his shields, completely depleting them and peppering the combat suit that he wore.

Karass dimly heard Telos mentally shouting for him to get out of the way, but the High Templar was so dazed from the numerous blows and impacts that he barely even registered his comrade's shouts – as a result, he felt the human in front of him suddenly let go of his arm and leap unexpectedly to the side, and the very last thing that High Templar Karass felt was the bright, sizzling energies of his comrade's own psionic blasts burning away at his body.

Rolling back up onto his feet as he barely dove out of the way of the Zeta's energy bolts in time, Logan discarded his empty SMG and began to draw one of his two remaining pistols as the Ultra he had just disengaged was completely incinerated by the blasts that had been meant for him. Roaring in shock and outrage as it realized what the Dragon Knight had tricked it into doing, the Zeta suddenly shot forward, another pair of psionic blades flaring to life from its own wrist bracers.

Preparing himself, Logan barely managed to draw his Fairfrozen in time to block the savage assault, the Zeta attacking with a fury uncharacteristic of the Grays that were normally at its level. However, though furious, the Zeta's assault was sloppy – spotting an opening so wide even a second-jobber could have taken advantage of it, Logan retaliated with a spinning kick that connected with such force the Zeta was sent flying into the nearest tree trunk, its psionic shields flaring with the impact. Landing smoothly on his feet, Logan drew his second-last pistol and aimed it at the Zeta, prepared to deliver the killing shot.

But the alien recovered far faster than Logan had expected, and unexpectedly, it abruptly turned tail and fled, speeding away amongst the trees and disappearing into the canopy.

Cursing, Logan fired several parting shots at the Zeta, but they pinged uselessly off of its remaining shields, completely ineffectual. The Dragon Knight swore an oath as he emptied the rest of his magazine uselessly at the fleeing Zeta, and realized that he could not afford to let the Gray get away to alert the rest to his position.

_Guess there's no time like the present to use it, then! _Logan decided, and raised his Fairfrozen, dropping down into a wide stance and sliding his other hand down its shaft, the side of his body facing the Gray that he could still see fleeing.

The Dragon Knight's eyes narrowed, and he envisioned the end that he saw for his prey, the creature that fled for its life before him now. His lip curling in anticipation, Logan brought the power forth from himself, and channelled the mana into his Fairfrozen, releasing the seal placed upon his spear.

_"Ikorose, Shinsō." [Shoot to Kill, God Spear]_

The Dragon Knight took one step forward, thrust his Fairfrozen forward with one hand in a mighty motion, and immediately his spear's shaft suddenly extended in length, streaking forward with the swiftness of a speeding bullet. Before the Zeta even knew what had hit it, the Fairfrozen's speartip and neck had suddenly burst right through its shields and erupted from its chest, gruesomely skewering it in mid-air, and leaving it hanging there.

Abruptly, the speartip retracted, and the Fairfrozen returned to its normal length in Logan's hand, leaving the Zeta's corpse to tumble to the forest floor far below. Exhaling as he returned the Fairfrozen to its holster over his back, the Dragon Knight quickly began to move off as he heard a distant roar of rage, one that he recognized to be Zeno's – obviously the behemoth had recognized the death knells of its comrades through the Khala, and was intensifying its efforts to find him.

_Let him come, then_. Logan thought to himself, and disappeared into the foliage surrounding him again, preparing himself for his next ambush. _He may have gotten the drop on me before, but not this time._

He had spent more than a decade wondering about his past, about what had truly happened to him, and now that he finally knew, his blood was screaming out for vengeance against those that had perpetrated such crimes against him.

Clenching his fists, Logan started to draw up the plans that he would need to properly fight against the entire Gray army plus Zeno, and began preparing himself for one of the biggest fights of his life.


End file.
